Lately,
self-hyping tech billionaires have become the objects of derision in our culture. Much of it has been directed at Elon “Chainsaw” Musk, who we never elected to slash our federal agencies
and jobs. That his cybertrucks are exploding is just the icing on the chaos.
Whereas last week, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos positioned himself to be a great humanitarian and
advocate for women with his latest Blue Origin launch, publicized as “the first all-female space flight since 1963.” That’s when a Russian female cosmonaut flew solo.
If you recall, a previous Blue Origin flight included the actor William Shatner, who played the wise Captain Kirk on “Star Trek.” He translated that persona when he
returned from his (free) mini-flight, becoming an oracle and philosopher king, reflecting on the quality of his time on earth. The “I’m not an astronaut, but
I-play-one-for-Bezos” bit got lots of traction.
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Well, these are very different times. Maybe the fault was in giving free trips to TV and pop stars while promoting the
stunt as an important history-making, boundary-breaking mission that, as the press release put it, will “create lasting impact that will inspire generations to come.”
Stratospherically tone-deaf, the venture comes at a time when qualified female scientists and trained female NASA employees are losing jobs, and research funding, and getting
disappeared from websites. Science and STEM budgets are being slashed in schools, not to mention the end of DEI. Observatories and science museums are losing their funding, and in danger of
closing.
Meanwhile, for some contemporary impact, Bezos’ fiancé Sanchez commissioned the Paris luxury fashion house Balenciaga to make the slimming and sexy
electric-blue space suits for the for the crew.
Before they took off, singer Katy Perry dove right in with an Elle magazine interviewer and announced that she was putting “the ass
in astronaut.”
Sometime TV anchor Lauren Sanchez added to the cosmetic spacebot vibe by saying that it would be the first time for eyelash extensions in space.
How offensive and
trivializing to the 65 women who have done the real work, gone into space in the last 45 years and made significant strides for NASA. That includes Sally Ride, the first American woman in space,
Kathryn Sullivan, the first to walk in space, and Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space. Sunita Willliams recently returned after nine months of conducting experiments on the
International Space Station. I also thought of Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who was tragically killed along with six fellow astronauts when the Challenger exploded during takeoff.
Fortunately, this 11-minute Blue Origin operation succeeded without injury, except to the reputations of Katy Perry, "CBS Morning" anchor Gayle King, and, of course, Bezos.
The trip was not well-received, and the fun started when the internet lit up over a moment during the return landing, when the hatch door opened and then suddenly closed,
apparently messing up the staging for Bezos, who later arrived and cosplayed with a “tool” to open the hatch.
Perry, a catalyst for snark, popped out and kissed the ground. Then
she shared with the Blue Origin interviewer that “she touched the divine feminine” and felt “so much love” for herself. It was so bad that even fast-food franchise
Wendy’s entered the anti-Katy fray on social media and told her to go back.
If nothing else, the capsule proved a great place for self-actualization. King, who had a
tremendous fear of flying, said Oprah made her do it. Afterward, King was very pleased with herself for having taken the flight.
A slew of celebs like Emily Ratajkowski,
Olivia Wilde, Olivia Munn, and Amy Schumer weighed in on social media with criticism about the waste of hundreds of millions of dollars and lack of gravitas on the part of the space-slayers.
King did not take kindly to that.
“There's nothing frivolous about what we did,” she said. Then she spun some major Blue
Origin programming in responding: “So I wish people would do more due diligence. And then my question is, have y’all been to space? Go to space or go to Blue Origin and see what they do
and then come back and say, ‘This is a terrible thing.'”
If only. It’s not clear what the cost of a seat is (say $250,000 and up) or whether it was
covered for this very connected all-woman crew.
Then King made it worse. She acknowledged that taking a flight with Blue Origin is “expensive” --
but added “if you get enough people who are interested, it doesn’t have to be that expensive.”
Uh, it’s not like getting a group together to go hiking. The people
have no bread.
So it’s funny that the idea of Marie Antoinette also came up in an article Joanna Coles wrote for the Daily Beast calling Lauren Sanchez in space “Marie
Antoinette in a Penis-Shaped rocket.”
Bezos should have read the room. If his aim was, as King put it, to inspire “other women and young girls,”
rather than create a cringe sales video for his space tourism business, he could have announced his own massive funding for science museums and STEM programs for the next generation of female
astronauts.
That would have made waves, in a good way.
But as it is, the female “pioneers” partaking of this inauthentic adventure almost started a
class war and came off as the embodiment of entitlement.
In perfect made-for-TV fashion, Oprah and two Kardashians were on the ground to receive the crew. Since then, it’s been reported
that the Kardashians sent Sanchez a $6,000 Judith Lieber bag, shaped like a flying saucer, to commemorate the day. How perfect.
Rarely has an advertising and publicity stunt backfired so
spectacularly. Bezos has managed to make the worst ad of the year.
And if this is the feminism of the future, we’re in for a bumpy ride.