Internet responds to Gal Gadot and other stars' cover of John Lennon song 'Imagine'

Nearly two weeks ago, “Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot posted a cover video of herself and her Hollywood friends singing John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Many lower class working Americans took to their social media platforms to ridicule Gadot and the featured stars for their insensitive effort.

Gadot opened the 3-minute long video with a monologue expressing how she has come to feel philosophical on her sixth day of self-isolation. Gadot then went on to describe a video she came across of an Italian man playing the trumpet to Lennon’s “Imagine” on his balcony. Attracting the attention of many of his neighbors, many more stepped out to sing along and share the heartfelt moment with him.

Gadot told viewers how she was moved by the unifying effort of the Italian community and then went on to try to recreate the experience. Gadot started off by singing “Imagine there’s no heaven,” followed by SNL alum Kristen Wiig with “it’s easy if you tried.”

Fifty Shades star Jamie Dornan followed with “No hell below us,” and 22 different celebrities followed to finish off the poorly edited mix. Few singers are unrecognizable as some bigger names include Natalie Portman, Sia, Will Ferrell, Mark Ruffalo, Amy Adams, Kaia Gerber, Jimmy Fallon and Cara Delevingne.

The cover felt like a wanna-be version of “We Are The World,” a song in which many renowned singers came together in the '80s to raise awareness to famine in Africa, which modernized the song for the destructive earthquake Haiti faced in 2010. Unfortunately, Gadot’s cover involved mostly actors, an obvious theme of unpreparedness and an overall awkward flow.

Many of her Hollywood friends immediately commented and reposted to share the intentialized whole-hearted moment. Jessica Chastain commented “This is so beautiful.” Award winning journalist Katie Couric reposted the video with the caption: “I ❤️ this!” 

But, the majority of comments were negative. Scrolling through the thousands of comments on Gadot’s post is disastrous – with one scornfully bitter comment after the next. Most viewers took the video as insulting, insensitive and unrelatable especially due to Gadot’s absurd caption, “We are in this together.”

Instagram user @lizzymarciniak said, “This isn’t encouraging. We aren’t in this together. While you all sing from your giant mansions without fear, I’m sitting here trying to figure out how I’m going to feed my children as a single parent. I lost my job because of this virus. I can’t get access to affordable testing. But thanks for the song I guess.” Marciniak’s comment received more than 605 likes.

Another angry user @laleleelulu said, “Nothing like rich famous people singing ‘imagine no possessions’ in their mortgage free homes as the rest of society queue at Lidl for broken biscuits.”

Another user @jay_bartlet said, “Imagine if you used your wealth and power to actually make a difference, not just sing a song on the internet.”

There is no talk or record of any of the featured celebrities having made donations to relief organizations related to the disastrous pandemic, except Fallon. GQ writer Sophia Benoit tweeted that she calculated the total net worth among the 25 stars to be $527 million dollars. 

Evidently, the Hollywood group thought the sing along would be more gratifying than a donation.

Other celebrities backed-up the video’s negative reception. Radio host Joe Rogan took to his podcast to rant, “This is not the time, when everyone's granny is dying, you f***ing idiot, to sing, ‘Imagine there's no heaven.’ It's such a dumb move.”

John Mayer hilariously took to Instagram to create a parody of the video inserting himself into the original cut singing bits of Ariana Grande’s “imagine” from her 2019 "Sweetener" album to make fun of Gadot’s version.

Many people utilized their social media platforms to criticize Gadot for using Lennon as a symbol of hope, a man who beat his wife and children while alive. Not to mention Gadot’s effort to create peace and unification seemed contradictory to viewers given her past combat training with the Israel Defense Forces.

Gadot’s intention to do good and spread positivity obviously failed among thousands of viewers. Though I am usually a supporter of Hollywood A-listers, I can’t help but be disgusted by this video’s obvious irony.

With most of America is in a grave panic to protect loved ones and find means of financial stability in economic crisis, it’s pathetically gross to see a bunch of rich people to tell us that it’s all going to be okay when they themselves have the resources to help but simply choose not to. 

Hollywood strikes again with its high-and-mighty attitude in this ‘all-talk, no action’ disaster of an effort to bring people together.