The theme of the Met Gala was met with some frustrations this year, as it honored the work of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, a man who expressed some hateful views prior to his death (including the derision of the #MeToo movement). But during Tuesday’s episode of “The View,” the hosts argued that the annual gala honored Lagerfeld’s work, not the man himself.
The subject led the day’s Hot Topics discussion, after moderator Whoopi Goldberg explained that “The View” will be continuing on amid the writers strike that officially got underway on Tuesday. As she explained, the writers on the show are responsible for writing her set-ups and transitions for each topic so, on Tuesday, she improvised.
Launching into the discussion, she simply opened the floor to her co-hosts for their thoughts on honoring Lagerfeld at all.
“Well, I think it’s easier to do when they’ve passed. So, now that he’s passed, this isn’t like lifting him up and honoring, it’s honoring the art,” Sara Haines said. “And I think it’s so important to remember that when you look at a history book in this country, we’ve seen that we were taught one thing and now we’re learning the full circle of everything.”
She continued, “So I think it doesn’t excuse it, it doesn’t make it less awful, but I think humans are multifaceted and very layered. And to be able to say now that he has passed that there were some pretty awful and egregious things that he believed and said, but last night was about his art, and that’s what people were doing.”
For host Sunny Hostin, the choice in theme “speaks to the power of art,” and “the power of fashion” specifically. She noted that Coco Chanel, an equally famous designer, was also a problematic figure, being a known Nazi sympathizer and reportedly worked as a Nazi informant during WWII, but is her work is still revered worldwide.
Meanwhile, host Alyssa Farah Griffin argued that it’s more important to look at what major fashion brands are doing now, as opposed to when they were founded.
“I also think it’s contextualizing it for the moment,” she said. “Basically, every major fashion house has some kind of problematic past, and I tend to look at what advancements have they made now to try to right those wrongs.”