Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything (Caulfield)

Discussion Questions
These questions were developed by Jennifer Johnson, Reference Librarian for the Springdale (Arkansas) Public Library. Thank you, Jennifer, for sharing them with LitLovers!

General
1. What did you think of the book?

2. What did you like / dislike about it?

3. Erin Collum (Springdale Library staff member) made this comment regarding the book and its author:

Well, I think he’s too good looking to have an average perspective on beauty trends, but he SAID he is flabby and has the worst skin in the world and I think he is just lying to us so that we will trust him and feel like he has a reason to want beauty fixes to work too. He’s the worst.

Do you agree / disagree with her?

4. Caulfield states that in writing the book...

I have tried to show the degree in which celebrities…are wrong about almost everything, whether in relation to health, beauty, [and] the goals to which we should aspire.

Does his book achieve and complete his thesis statement?

Timothy Caulfield, the Author
1. Does the author present a well-rounded discussion?

2. Does he admire or criticize celebrity culture?

3. How can his experiments, assessments, and conclusions be applied to the particular culture of the area of the country in which you live?

4. How accurate is he in his "scientific" research methodology and assessments?

5. What kind of language does he use? Is it objective and dispassionate or biased and opinionated?

6. What short and long term implications do the book have for the future?

7. Was there a specific passage or part of the book that struck you as significant?

8. What have we learned from reading the book?

9. What professional motives does Timothy Caulfield have for publishing this book?


Timothy Caulfield, the Person
1. Do you think, given his physical appearance, that he has the appropriate knowledge and experience to critic beauty standards? What do you think of his "poor-pore predicament" and "blotchy, clogged Celtic hide"?

2. Timothy Caulfield presents a male’s perspective on celebrity culture, particularly focusing on the female section of that specific culture. Do you think he adequately discusses celebrity culture considering his unspoken target is female celebrities?

3. As a native Canadian, do you think he has the expertise to judge US celebrity culture?

4. What underlining personal motives, biases, and objectives do you think Timothy Caulfield has about celebrity culture?

5. In 2014, Timothy Caulfield was named one of 50 most influential persons in Alberta, Canada. Considering his stardom in Alberta, Canada, how can we trust his research and critical thinking process when this juicy tidbit of information was omitted from the book?


Celebrity Authority
1. What is beauty?

2. How does our view of beauty differ from Caulfield’s idea of beauty?

3. In terms of consumer products, does the author evaluate the products equally?

4. Does the author have preconceived opinions of celebrities? Are these opinions specific to a particular demographic in celebrity culture?

5. What did you think of the "Celebrity Escargot Course" and the "resurfacing" options?

6. What are the relationships between employment and beauty, specifically to the celebrity world?

7. Timothy Caulfield could be considered a "celebrity" in popular authorship. Considering his author celebrity status, do you think he is the appropriate person to judge the male and female celebrity cultures?

8. How do our views of beauty and cosmetic surgery change as we age? Does Caulfield take these changing opinions into consideration? Does he attempt to survey the average person?


Stardom Dreams
1. According to Caulfield, parents

...seeking celebrity [have]…become a central family activity, one that consumes a significant amount of their financial resources and their time.

Is success and fortune the same thing as celebrity success, according to Caulfield?

2. Are cognitive biases of unrealistic optimism exclusively tied to celebrity culture?

3. According to a UN Report, Caulfield has stated

The idea of social mobility, of becoming rich, is core to the American mythology…but, ironically, American performance in this area is consistently one of the worst of the developed nations.

If someone says they want to get rich, according to Caulfield’s arguments, does that automatically mean celebrity status?

4. Do you believe that celebrity culture is a "reflection of our collective values and a manifestation of complex interplay between social expectations and socioeconomic realities"?

5. What are your thoughts on the "Narcissism Epidemic"?

(Questions submitted by Jennifer Johnson. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution both to Jen and LitLovers. Thanks.)

top of page (summary.