Yes, Zendaya looked stunning. But Met Gala was a tone-deaf charade of excess and hypocrisy.

Just down the street from where Columbia University protesters are still wreaking havoc in New York City, the Met Gala wrapped its opulent night of fashion, beauty − and hypocrisy.

The Met Gala gets a little more repugnant every year, but this year might have been the best example yet of why Hollywood shines at the height of its hypocrisy. Stars flocked to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday in gauche opulence, hardly giving a side eye to the world's chaos, inflation, war and poverty that the price of their tickets could diminish with ease.

Each year brings a specific theme that attendees, who are mostly Hollywood artists and New York fashion icons, incorporate into their outlandish but occasionally gorgeous costumes. This year's theme to raise money for The Costume Institute was bizarrely titled "Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion," and "The Garden of Time" acted as the dress code.

The year's Met Gala gave us a real-life 'Hunger Games'

The event is intended to be an art-based fundraiser to expand the world of art. It is a chance for Hollywood and New York elites with an interest or career in fashion to experiment and execute fashion concepts with big names and designers, brands and industries.

There's nothing wrong with art for art's sake and beauty has its place in the world. It could be argued that we need this kind of distraction now more than ever. But the need for a distraction is a problem that we can't ignore. We don't live in the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty (although even she had her enemies).

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Whether it intends to or not, the Met Gala this year came across as a real-life "Hunger Games." While the rest of the "districts" of Panem − the United States and the world − struggle with consequences like poverty, inflation, homelessness and even war, the Met Gala − the "Capitol" − has one focus: Raising money for costumes.

"The Met Gala, it has always had one mission, and that is to raise money for the important work," Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour has said.

The world is in disarray and the Met Gala seemed hypocritical

This is tone-deaf to a degree that would be comical if the world weren't in turmoil. Right now, Gaza and Israel are at war after Hamas brutally attacked innocent Israelis on Oct. 7. Ukraine continues to defend itself from the brutal and tyrannical Russia.

In America, inflation remains high, thanks to Congress' outlandish spending, causing average families to struggle to make ends meet. Protesters at college campuses around the nation are causing chaos. Many of those universities, some of which are elite, are handling the issue so poorly that they're unraveling the fabric of decency and respect for all.

The Met Gala also demonstrates the level of hypocrisy that probably only Hollywood elites are capable of. Hollywood A-listers are constantly getting on their soapbox to complain and lecture the rest of us about discrimination, treatment of marginalized groups or equal pay.

Most fashion icons in New York or actors in Hollywood probably couldn't list all nine Supreme Court justices, but they're more than happy to tell the rest of Americans whom to vote for and why.

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They have no problem gathering at an event where the actual goal is to wear costumes to raise money for just an organization to have more costumes. There were approximately 450 attendees paying an average ticket price of $75,000 − a table for 10 goes for $350,000.

I'm no finance expert, but I'm guessing that money could help diminish poverty in some parts of the world or even the rampant homelessness that peppers the streets of Hollywood. (In fact, in California, where many of them live, homelessness is higher there than anywhere else.)

Thousands of refugees enter the United States annually, often in need of basic necessities. As of 2022, more than 11% of Americans suffer in poverty, nearly 40 million people.

Forgive me if I’m not impressed with a $75,000 ticket to an event that purchases costumes instead of alleviating poverty from a bunch of celebrities who embrace, rather than expose, the dichotomy of excessive wealth with the difficulties the rest of society endures and then expects us to applaud in admiration.   

The stars at the Met Gala seem blind to the suffering around them

It's a free country, of course, and A-list celebrities can spend their money however they wish. But that doesn't make this year's Met Gala more palatable.

Even the fashion on display didn't redeem the already noxious concept represented. Sure, Elsa Pataky and Zendaya looked stunning and gorgeous, but the ostentatious nature of the costumes now seems sillier than ever. (Met Gala attendees might argue that the opulence is the point, but isn't that twice as bad?)

How could Lana Del Rey pose with 3D branches coming out of her dress while protesters screamed anti-American sentiments down the street at Columbia? Hollywood already promotes unhealthy body images, as so many stars relent to surgery and other procedures to improve themselves. The Met Gala capitalizes on this even more. As she has for several years, Kim Kardashian wore a silver dress showing off a tiny waist and her trademark curves, demonstrating unrealistic body ideas for most mothers and women in general.

Beauty and art can be a salve in difficult times, but the Met Gala and attendees are too oblivious to recognize that they aren't providing this service. From its perch inside the gorgeous bubble of the hypocritical elite, the Met Gala is now so ostentatious that it can't hear the rest of their country, much less the world, clamoring in need.

We know how the "Hunger Games" series plays out, but it doesn't diminish the effect of the hypocrisy and affluence Hollywood and New York display for all the world to see. In fact, if anything, the Met Gala's self-aggrandizing is so obvious and excessive that there's only one thing left to say to the self-absorbed pop stars: May the odds be ever in their favor.

Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids.

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