It goes without saying that being a celebrity probably makes everything better. They can bitch all they want about the lack of privacy–and Kim K can talk about how the robbery changed her forever as well–but, ultimately, the tradeoff of being able to do pretty much whatever the fuck you want in exchange for endless media scrutinization doesn’t seem so bad.
Case in point is the recent fire (pardon the loose pun) the Metropolitan Museum of Art has come under by the New York Department of Health for the barrage of evidence of celebrities attending the Met Gala smoking in the bathroom (Madonna, naturally, was not among them). Posted photos on Instagram by the likes of Frances Bean Cobain (a.k.a. space_witch666) prompted health commissioner Mary Bassett to personally reach out to the powers that be at the Met to write, “We were dismayed to read reports that some celebrities chose smoking as their fashion accessory and flagrantly violated New York City’s smoking laws. There is also no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. All visitors to public places deserve protection from secondhand smoke, including people who are visiting places like The Met.”
Talk about a shaming. The fact that the posse in question is known for having a “bad” reputation (Courtney Love and her daughter together in a rare moment might have helped to inspire some of that rebellion) doesn’t mean that they won’t still get a pass. After all, two of them are rock royalty and the other is Marc Jacobs and his underwear model boyfriend Char Defrancesco. Who would possibly chastise them?
Instead, it is the museum itself that must bear the brunt of the condemnation, which hardly seems fair, as it should not be their responsibility to monitor celebrity smokers as though they are their children sneaking fags while away at boarding school. And yet, even fining those pictured smoking would do little to enforce the feeling of being punished, being that the cost is only around a hundred dollars–tantamount to a penny in the celebrity world. At times like these, one really wishes vaping wasn’t so gauche. It could really aid in the preservation of centuries-old art.
