By: Vidal D’Costa –
It’s time for me to take a big ol’ poopie on good ol’ goopie!
A bit of a backstory before we begin: ‘GOOP’ is a holistic health and lifestyle company founded by actress Gwyneth Paltrow. And it has everything that one would expect from a company with a name that rhymes with poop- exploitation, pulling the wool over its customers’ eyes, more exploitation, and a fan following that would put cults to shame. The GOOP Lab is a docuseries that takes itself way too seriously in its quest to uncover the many benefits of pseudoscience and revolves around Gwyneth’s life of crime and rise as a snake oil saleswoman.
Both the company and the show have been called out by everyone from YouTuber commentators like JonTron and Amanda the Jedi to even renowned satirist and talk show host Stephen Colbert who takes regular jabs at them on his show for their unethical practices. Even Nicole Richie came out with a show of her own called Nikki Fresh on Quibi that was reminiscent of The GOOP Lab and also felt like a parody of it. Ironically, while the former featured a quirky, self-aware, and likeable Nicole Richie rearing bees and chickens and utilising her trademark witty sarcasm to the fullest in songs and rap numbers about saving the environment while decked out in extravagant costumes in larger than life music videos, the latter features an out of touch Gwyneth Paltrow and her equally out of touch cronies (or Goopsters as I call them) who peddle rubbish to gullible customers who are taken in by the celeb lifestyle and who blindly practice Paltrow’s unusual, harmful practice of vaginal steaming.
Think of Gwyneth and her Goopsters as a dollar store version of Willy Wonka and his faithful Oompah Loompahs, but with ten times the derangement and none of the fun somersaults (Gwyneth can’t even do a decent push-up to save her life apparently!).
Obviously, sitting through 6 episodes of The GOOP Lab wasn’t easy to do, but it provided me- a girl who lives and loves to rant- with perfect fodder and it is obviously the perfect show… For me to poop on! (As Triumph the insult comic dog would have put it.). Also if it seems as if I’ve overused the word ‘poop’ in this intro and thus ruined your appetite, do forgive me, dear readers. But when GOOP is indeed a piece of poop, I can’t help it!
Just go ahead and read and you’ll discover for yourself. Do arm yourself with beer though (preferably the organic kind):
1) The Healing Trip: Five Beers
Gwyneth sends the Goopsters off to Jamaica to act as her ‘GOOP Lab rats’ at a psychedelic therapy healing retreat. Oh, did I mention that she uses these poor bastards as human shields because she herself is too cowardly to be a crash test dummy?
I went into this pilot episode that centres around psychedelics and their use as a form of therapy with an open mind, of course, and I did like listening to some of the inputs from the actual people who underwent psychedelic therapy/magic mushroom therapy (or whatever the scientific name for it is) like Jon, a PTSD afflicted soldier, a suicidal woman who uses microdoses of magic mushrooms to keep her depression in check, and an elderly lady who was part of a case study involving the impact of psychedelics on anxiety brought on by cancer. However, I wish the spotlight was kept more on just these people whom I genuinely cared about and on their experiences since it would have made for a far more interesting documentary, rather than how the team of GOOP went about it… By making it all about themselves, about boosting Gwyneth’s giant ego, and of course, GOOP spreading the fake news that ‘everything can be fixed via psychedelics’, whether you suffer from depression or straight up toxic masculinity (I’m not even kidding about that one) with not much strong evidence to back it up other than Gwyneth’s assistant Kevin getting high in Jamaica and being embraced by two guys before frolicking in the sea with his fellow Goopsters and he is now free of all daddy issues(?) which I found highly improbable, but then again what do I know, eh?
I also didn’t like how whenever the conversation shifts to Gwyneth’s experience with the drug MDMA , the viewers learn nothing more about it other than that ‘it was an emotional experience altogether’ which is just pretty surface level stuff, considering this is an episode that is supposed to be about the therapeutic properties of psychedelics. I read up on the fatal side effects of MDMA later that day (which aren’t brought up by Gwyneth, who only praises it) and not gonna lie, those left me feeling ‘highly emotional’, plus ‘highly disturbed’ too.
Another unnecessary character who adds nothing of value to this ‘research project’ is Elise who is the most wooden and robotic person I’ve ever seen and every time she speaks, she sounds like she’s trying to hit the word limit on a term paper. Even when she’s on psychedelics, she somehow manages to bring down the energy level of an entire room of overly enthusiastic Goopsters and I honestly feel that this episode could’ve benefited more without her and fellow boomer Gwyneth hanging about like a pair of old dead geese.
Elise’s obnoxious and incessant giggling during the psychedelic therapy retreat in Jamaica just felt annoying and also distracted from important issues like GOOP employee Jenny’s trauma and her coping with her father’s suicide, which is the only actual breakthrough in this long, slow burn of an episode revolving around GOOP employees just getting high of their tits in Jamaica with no satisfying payoff. I also wish they’d edited out bits such as the Goopsters hanging out at the airport before their flight and munching on almonds and what not which is just filler. At the end of the episode, I felt like the Goopsters gave an illegal psychedelic retreat too much credit for far too little, they crammed one too many unnecessary characters and filler bits up in there like a jade egg up someone’s G-spot, and they accomplished only half of what they’d set out to accomplish.
Mini Drinking Game:
Down a Shot: every time someone says the phrase ‘spirit of the mushroom’
Chug til the Room Starts Spinning: every time Elise breaks into giggles and disrupts the flow of the episode with her cloying personality.
2) Cold Comfort: Five Beers
In this episode of The GOOP Lab, the Goopsters visit their fun-loving, guitar-strumming Dutch grandad who dresses like Papa Smurf. I’m kidding… they visit Wim Hof, AKA The Ice Man, a shaman-esque guy who lives in Poland. This episode revolves around his cure-all method of breathing exercises, diving into deep icy lakes, and indulging in snowball fights.
Like the previous episode, this episode too felt like the same old wine packaged in a new bottle and it too features testimonials from people who benefited from The Ice Man’s method, although this time around they were made to speak as if they were in a scripted infomercial. And than there’s a montage of all the case studies having a ball in the snow, dancing and doing splits and what not while Wim Hof sings in broken English and strums a guitar in the background while surrounded by the young and adoring Goopsters.
So I will admit that all in all this was fun and even heartwarming at times and I cracked up at Gwyneth and Elise when they struggled to do simple push-ups since they obviously seem like two robots disguised as humans who’ve only just discovered what push-ups are after living in their pseudoscience bubble for all eternity! It’s strangely fascinating to me how try-hard they both are to appear cool but end up being the most awkward, clownish, and uncomfortable ones out of all their fellow Goopsters.
And while it did serve its purpose of being entertaining, it didn’t thaw my ice cold heart and I didn’t warm up to The Ice Man as much as the Goopsters did since I don’t agree with the idea of spending hard earned cash on listening to an ageing athlete teach people basic stuff like how to breathe in and out, how to make snow angels and enjoy each other’s company before jumping into a cold lake. It sounds fun, but ridiculous and after finding out that there are medical articles out there debunking Hof’s theories about the human body’s endurance capabilities and learning that a handful have even died from his techniques in the past sent shivers down my spine while watching Gwyneth and the Goopsters give yet another of their pseudo-scientist pals a platform.
Mini Drinking Game:
Down a Shot: for every time Papa Smurf Wim Hof convinces the Goopsters to indulge in an activity where their chances of dying of hypothermia and drowning are sky-high!
3) The Pleasure is Ours: Three Beers
I won’t talk poorly about this episode since it was the only one that actually appealed to me and actually put a satisfied grin across my face, because unlike the other episodes, it didn’t take itself too seriously and there was something accomplished in the end and it also thankfully didn’t push pseudoscience into my face. It was both fun and educational, while heavily giving importance to anatomy and biology instead of that fake harmful stuff that GOOP thinks is science.
It featured the harmless and humble sex educator Betty Dodson teaching the Goopsters how to be more comfy in their own skin and she also taught dumdum Gwyneth what the difference between the vulva and the vagina is. For someone who prides herself on being a know-it-all and the face of a brand that sells vagina candles and vagina eggs, Paltrow knew all too little about a woman’s nether regions, so this episode was enough to expose her (for want of a better word) for being a dimwit.
Gwyneth’s prudish attitude, insecurities, and limited knowledge, too, were on full display here in front of a well-educated woman like Dodson who promotes body positivity, empowerment, and is wise beyond her years. Dodson’s exercises were enlightening and even got a nervous laugh out of me since some of them, like having a woman perch her vulva in front of a mirror to explore it, reminded me of the early episodes of Late Night with Conan O’Brien whenever he had an elderly but wise sex educator like Sue Johanson on the show to talk openly to the audience about her various innovative sex toys, thus making everyone unnerved at first but leaving everyone fascinated and unfazed by such a touchy topic towards the end of it. Some of her experiments with Carlin Ross were also reminiscent of the ones conducted on the show Masters of Sex.
Honestly, I’d have preferred it if Netflix had just given a professional like Ms. Dodson (I discovered that she recently passed away) her own show instead of hosting the dodos who are devoid of any personality or self awareness (or awareness of any kind) down at the GOOP Lab. What a missed opportunity.
P.S. I would highly recommend the late Betty Dodson’s YouTube channel (it’s run by her assistant, lawyer and podcaster Carlin Ross now) which is a truly pleasurable and educational experience. So, I guess the only good thing that came out of The GOOP Lab is me finding out that folks as cool and brave as Betty Dodson and Carlin Ross exist to help shed light on taboo topics for both men and women from various cultures and even address the stigma of slut shaming in society.
Mini Drinking Game:
Raise a Toast: to the memory of late Betty Dodson.
Down a Shot: for every time the word ‘vulva’ is uttered.
4) The Health Span Plan: Six Pack
I didn’t expect to follow up a great third episode that promoted body positivity and female sexuality with a horrible fourth episode that promotes ridiculous harmful procedures to help achieve unhealthy, shallow beauty standards.
This episode started out with Gwyneth, Elise, and Wendy the Goopster all indulging in 3 diets (pescatarian, vegan, and freeze-dried) in a bid to look young and increase their life expectancy.
Later, Gwyneth indulges in a procedure that involves injecting her face with her own blood in a bid to look young while in the same breath, she hypocritically admonishes her celeb buddies for using fillers and Botox to do the same. She ends up looking like a sunburnt idiot after the procedure, by the way. I can only assume that somebody told her about the age-old tale of bathing in the blood of virgins to look young and she legit took it at face value like the dummy that she is!
Wendy and Elise, meanwhile, have needles and sutures inserted into their faces and end up looking like the Pinhead from Hellraiser and The Joker from The Dark Knight, respectively. I fast forwarded through this bit because both needles and sutures make me cringe and then I fast forwarded some more because the next bit involved a pseudo-scientist named Dr. Longo trying to explain science in his own pseudoscientific way and that makes me cringe even more.
In the end, I fast forwarded straight to the end credits because my life expectancy would’ve shortened drastically if I’d sat through any more of this crappy episode.
Mini Drinking Game:
Down a Shot: for every stupid procedure that’s meant to make a woman look young but is just harmful and disturbing to sit through.
5) The Energy Experience: Six Pack
Gwyneth said she felt ‘brand new’ after one energy healing session with a chiropractor who’s made a business off of hovering his hands over people like they’re crystal balls all while doing something with their energy (I wasn’t paying attention by episode 5 because I myself was drained of all energy by this point). I, on the other hand, only felt a chill run down my spine every time the guy’s hands hovered ever so closely over someone’s buttocks…. And this happened a LOT!
I mean, he hovered his hands over people’s arses so many times, it actually gave me arse bumps! I remember watching an elderly acupuncturist do something similar-ish on Ripley’s Believe it or Not as a kid and that felt innocent as compared to this chiropractor guy getting too close to comfort to celebs such as Julienne Hough, whom pal Gwyneth obviously called over for some sexually charged ‘healing’ from Mr. Handsy Chiropractor Man (Ugh… That whole sentence sounds like a porno title). Add to that the ungodly moans of my favourite character (and possible robot) Elise and you’ve got what it feels to be like down in the seventh circle of Hell!
There’s also no science to this method of ‘healing’ and I’ve found after my own research that most of the ‘science’ that Mr. Handsy Chiropractor Man spouts in this (the double slit experiment comes up a lot) has nothing to actually do with his procedure which mainly comprises of, ahem, copping a feel.
A lot of this episode felt scripted, too, mostly because the lines mouthed by everyone in it were too corny to be true, with one of the recipients of the ‘cop a feel technique’ even going so far as to calling it an ‘exorcism’. I’d believe her more if she’d starting regurgitating green pea soup midway through the procedure, but all she did was fake an orgasm through it all…. obviously to get away from Mr. Handsy Chiropractor Man. Also, last I heard, GOOP was selling something called ‘Psychic vampire repellent’ (that’s the actual name, not even kidding) that helps ‘banish’ anyone who gives off bad vibes. And honestly, I have a good mind to buy one of those just in case I encounter creeps like these in the future and am forced to defend myself.
This episode just made me feel extremely uncomfortable in my own skin rather than feel relaxed, and I couldn’t finish it without feeling revolted by how gross, exploitative, and fake it all felt.
Mini Drinking Game:
Down a Shot: every time Mr. Handsy Chiropractor Man rambles on about the double slit experiment. Save it for the jury, mate.
Down a Shot: every time Mr. Handsy Chiropractor Man hovers his hands over someone’s buttocks like a total creep for the umpteenth time. Where are the police when you need em, eh?
6) Are you Intuit?: Six Pack
I instantly sensed (as these so called mediums would put it) from the corny-arse, pun-based title that this episode would be the worst of the lot. And it was. It felt like we were back in ye ol’ early 2000s again when talk show host Montel Williams would bring on a bunch of crack addicts… ahem, I mean, ‘mediums’ on his talk show in order to play with the feelings of his audience, emotionally manipulate the mother of a kidnapping victim into thinking that her daughter was dead, or emotionally aggravate the grieving widow of a 9/11 fireman, all to make a quick buck off their sorrow and boost ratings. Replace Montel with Gwyneth and his audience, the widow, and the grieving mum with the easily manipulated Goopsters and you could hardly tell the difference.
This episode takes the cake as the absolute worst of the lot as it gives fraudulent mediums a free pass and the only stand-out for me was a skeptical Goopster, whom I’ve since learnt has moved on from GOOP. I applaud her for remaining a skeptic, thus proving to be the medium’s undoing, and I really hope the mediums who were featured in this with their god-awful acting and predictable one-liners get their just due and get sued for fraud some day.
Mini Drinking Game:
Down a Shot: for every prediction that these pathetic mediums pull out of their arses.
Down a Shot: for every time the skeptical Goopster looks like she’s holding in a skeptical guffaw.
That’s all for today. I must go cleanse my brain now. As my favourite YouTuber Amanda the Jedi put it: “Don’t drink the GOOP Koolaid, man!” Have a beer instead and stick to listening to actual medical practitioners.
