The Devil Owns Amazon and Now… Fashion?

Money may not be able to buy you taste, but it sure can get you close to it.

The price of a ticket to the Met Gala for 2026 is $100,000, which is up 33% since last year’s price of $75,000. For context, an annual salary of $100,00 now provides Americans with the same kind of lifestyle that $80,000 would have given just a decade ago. In the same reality, Amazon workers have been organizing for weeks ahead of the Met Gala to advocate for its boycott.

Posters titled “Boycott the Bezos Met Gala” have popped up across NYC, highlighting Amazon's ruthless worker exploitation and collaboration with ICE. A notable display right in front of the Met Gala carpet showed a sign titled “Met Gala VIP toilet” which said it was “installed in honor of Met Gala chair Jeff Bezos” with a basket of empty water bottles because, the sign reasoned, “it’s good enough for his staff”. Combined with horrific workplaces with worsening labor rights, Amazon workers take home a median pay of about $37,000 as of 2025-2026, if they even make it home.

The Met Gala has been criticized for years for its invitees’ extravagant parading of their opulence and riches, but what happened this year?

Jeff Bezos, along with his wife Lauren Sánchez, stepping into the roles as co-chairs of the Met Gala—roles which they paid at least $10 million for—is just the latest move to assert influence and dominance in practically every aspect of American life by bleeding Amazon’s workers dry. It’s not a secret why Amazon workers are protesting this move. In fact, the reasons have been extensively documented. Amazon warehouse workers are twice as likely to be seriously injured than workers at other warehouses. Half of Amazon warehouse workers are reliant on public assistance programs like Snap and Medicaid as they struggle to make ends meet. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s 2026 investigation found that Amazon violated the worker rights of disabled and pregnant workers by denying medical accommodations and forcing unpaid leave. Warehouse staff routinely face intense pressure during peak production periods for Amazon, leading to thousands of workers suffering from musculoskeletal disorders and other preventable workplace injuries. 

Workers have responded to Amazon’s inhumane conditions by organizing for better conditions and pay, to which Amazon has retaliated with aggressive union busting. Amazon spent at least $26 million on firms that specialize in anti-labor organizing and union-busting techniques, according to the company’s 2025 filings with the U.S. Labor Department. And they paid good money for the consultancy for a reason. Amazon has flooded its warehouses with anti-union flyers in bathrooms and breakrooms, which workers could come across after their mandatory meetings with disinformation about unions. In fact, Jefferson County spokeswoman Helen Hayes asserts that the county sped up the red lights near Amazon’s fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama at the company’s behest, making it harder for union organizers to engage with employees and drivers at the traffic median.

Amazon’s worker treatment is not the only reason for the protest of Bezos and the Met Gala by association. The Met Gala’s lead sponsor has consistently supported ICE in their efforts to target minorities and terrorize vulnerable communities. According to the Immigrant Defense Project, Amazon Web Services supports the Department of Homeland Security via its cloud storage services. By being the primary broker of cloud storage for the DHS, the company allows ICE to collect information on immigrants and their communities to ultimately surveil and track people for deportation. And the environmental impact of these data centers? Just a few weeks ago, Amazon was to pay $20.5 million in a settlement over nitrate pollution from their data center facilities contaminating the groundwater in Morrow County in northeast Oregon. 

Vogue’s former editor-in-chief Anna Wintour said on her 2017 appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden that she would never invite Donald Trump back to the Met Gala. But what does it mean when the Founder of Amazon—which contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund—is now a co-chair at the Met Gala, which Anna Wintour runs? 

And what does a tech billionaire, who is rich off of the world’s largest e-commerce and cloud computing company, want with the world of luxury fashion anyways? For the longest time, Silicon Valley built its ethos on its rejection of art, taste, and beauty by refusing to consider style, artistic principles, and visual aesthetics. The tech world prided itself on its focus on function and utility over an appreciation for the arts, which would translate into a maintained distance from the humanities as a whole.

But as the tech industry has gained its current reputation as being empty and soulless, especially with tech companies sapping consumers’ privacy and money more and more every day, it is in dire need of a PR facelift. And what has the strategy been? Palantir has been cosplaying as a lifestyle brand selling apparel and tote bags. Zuckerberg even had a seat at this year’s Met Gala, a night that is dedicated to celebrating creativity and supporting the arts. 

But these billionaires only care about the arts to the extent to which their support can launder their reputations.

Days after the Met Gala, Meta is discontinuing end-to-end encryption of Instagram direct messages. Palantir has a contract with the IDF to provide AI-driven data analysis software for use in Gaza. All of this is what the Met Gala has served to obscure by being associated with Bezos, which is what he gains for contributing so heavily towards. Artists and creatives receive his monetary support, especially at a time when the increasing cost of living is crushing Americans nationwide, but only if they can ignore the structural violence of Amazon’s empire.

The Met Gala has effectively legitimized him culturally, and others like him, in the eyes of the public. A public that is waking up to the violence being perpetuated by tech companies and the billionaires that benefit from them.

This is not to imply that union-busting and practices are mutually exclusive from the Met Gala itself, either. Ahead of the 2026 Met Gala, unionized workers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art posted that 91% of the museum’s hourly staff and 27% of salaried staff earn less than a living wage.

Condé Nast, the primary organizer and media partner for the Met Gala, has been accused of engaging in retaliatory and anti-union behavior. The union, Condé United, which is affiliated with the NewsGuild of New York, states that Condé Nast fired four union leaders and suspended others after a confrontation with the company’s HR over the layoffs and closure of Teen Vogue. Teen Vogue was known for its youth-focused political coverage, and its closure marked another hit to candid reporting at a time when hard-hitting journalism is needed most, while newspapers all over the country close.

Fashion, and the arts as a whole, has always sought to encapsulate and represent the human experience. But after depleting natural capital by polluting our water and exhausting human capital by working employees to death, Amazon and other tech giants are now coming for cultural capital as a way to validate their existence in our society.

An existence that they’ve built by betraying every facet of the social contract, when at the very least, they could pay their share in taxes.

If our understanding of what it means to be human is going to be shaped by tech companies’ money in arenas such as fashion, what does that say about our sense of humanity?

Re-Visiting Andrea Arnold’s 2011 Filmed Adaptation of Wuthering Heights: A Conversation About Adaptations

Emily Brontë’s sole published work, Wuthering Heights, is not a beautiful story. It’s barely even a love story, much less “the greatest love story of all time” as the tagline for Emerald Fennell's upcoming adaptation goes. Brontë wrote this story to showcase the brutal ugliness of humanity by exploring the devastating fallout of generational abuse, racism, and classism. As Peter Bradshaw writes for The Guardian: “Director Andrea Arnold and cinematographer Robbie Ryan strip the story ruthlessly down to its bare essentials: pain, anger and love.” 

Arnold’s greatest strength in this film is her decided lack of romance. The Earnshaw family home is not a picturesque country house, but a grimy farmhouse smack dab in the middle of nowhere, bombarded by brutal rainstorms. According to Jeannette Catsoulis for NPR: “Captured with ravishing naturalism–from eye-straining candlelight to painfully harsh daylight…the film has a melancholy, sinister atmosphere only partly explained by its lashings of rain and banks of gray fog.” Catherine (Shannon Beer as an adolescent, and Kaya Scodelario as a young adult) and Heathcliff (Solomon Glave as an adolescent, later James Howson as a young adult) do not go on Bridgerton-style promenades across a flowery, green landscape, but hike their way through harsh, windy, grassy terrains that leave them caked in dirt. 

Arnold’s aesthetic may not be the most conventionally attractive, but it shows a clear understanding of the text’s Gothic nature and immerses the viewer in the world that Brontë herself was drawing from. The Earnshaws themselves are portrayed as rough, middle-class farmers, especially in comparison to the wealthy, upper-class Lintons. There is meant to be a clear class divide between Wuthering Heights and the neighboring estate of Thrushcross Grange, as shown in scenes of Catherine and Heathcliff sneaking across the moors to peek into the Lintons’ windows. Where the Lintons are well-dressed, educated, and sophisticated, the Earnshaws must work in fields and can only afford to send one person–Hindley (Lee Shaw)--to university. 

Another highlight of Arnold’s film is the attention paid to Catherine and Heathcliff’s shared childhood. When Heathcliff is first brought to the Earnshaws, he is around six or seven years old, while Catherine is five and Hindley is fourteen. Their connection is one that is innocent of the societal divides that await them in adulthood. It may surprise newcomers to know that Catherine’s narrative action is confined to the first half of the novel until her death halfway through. Consequently, Kaya Scodelario is not given as much screen time as audiences may have expected from such a well-established actor. However, part of Wuthering Heights’ tragedy comes from the juvenile naivete of its characters. By the time Edgar Linton (Jonny Powell when younger and James Northcote when older) proposes to Catherine, she is fifteen while he is only a few years older (but likely still a teenager). Catherine’s life is cut tragically short before she ever truly gets a chance to grow up. 

Of course, the most standout choice that Arnold makes in her film is the decision to cast Black actors in the role of Heathcliff. Despite Heathcliff’s explicit description as “dark-skinned” along with numerous assumptions about his race which strongly imply that he was not white, almost every adaptation before the 2011 version–and including the upcoming movie–has cast a white actor in the role. Racism in Wuthering Heights was not an afterthought, but a prominent part of the story, especially where Heathcliff was concerned. Characters such as Nelly Dean and even Catherine herself constantly refer to his darker complexion and features, while Hindley calls him Romani slurs. Bradshaw writes that this casting choice leads to Heathcliff being “confronted with overt and brutal racism from those of his new family who resent the outsider, and are determined to treat him like any farm animal.” Heathcliff’s race is part of the overall theme of “othering” that is present throughout the story; he is not like these white people, and he is mistreated because of it.  

A major criticism of Fennell’s film is her decision to cast Australian actor Jacob Elordi in the role of Heathcliff. This backlash was further fueled by her casting director, Kharmel Cochrane, defending the choice, remarking that “you really don’t need to be accurate. It’s just a book. That is not based on real life”.  However, this book is meant to reflect real life, and that includes England–and Yorkshire’s–complicated history of racial prejudice that is a catalyst for the abuse that Heathcliff suffers as a child. Frankly, it is frustrating how many filmmakers have chosen to simply ignore the explicit references to Heathcliff being non-white, considering that it is made very clear in the text. There are only so many times a filmmaker can say it’s an “interpretation” when one of the first things readers learn about Heathcliff is that he is “dark-skinned.” 

Unfortunately, for all the things that Arnold gets right in her adaptation, there are several areas in which she falls short. As Roger Ebert points out in his November 2012 review: “What she hasn’t done is make a terrifically entertaining film. Although this version dumps many of the novel’s passages, particularly from the later chapters, it’s dreary and slow-paced, heavy on atmosphere, introverted.” Like many past iterations, Arnold cuts out the narrative framing device of Nelly Dean telling the story to Mr. Lockwood, along with the second half of the story, which follows the children of Catherine and Edgar and Heathcliff and Isabella. Additionally, dialogue is incredibly sparse in this film, which quickly wears out as the film goes on, which creates confusion rather than intrigue. 

Arnold’s film is far from perfect, and to an extent, it is unfair to pass harsh judgment on Fennell’s film before it comes out. However, if future filmmakers wish to adapt the challenging Gothic text, they should look to Arnold’s gritty, naturalistic version for a blueprint. Frankly, a movie that bluntly showcases the wildness of the moorlands and the intense connection between Catherine and Heathcliff is what Brontë herself would have wanted.

Truth Over Perversion: Following Christ v. Christian Nationalism

Is a country built on hypocrisy and deception capable of standing as

“One nation under God”? 

This question lingers in my mind daily as I continue growing into a self-liable citizen. Christianity sits as America’s predominant religion. As much as I’d love to believe it to be purely out of discipleship, the truth is quite the opposite. This country’s foundation, as some may know, is based on the Discovery Doctrine, a common practice of conquest and conversion. With conquest comes power above all else– above religion and above the people. Today, this system has rebranded itself as Christian Nationalism, a political ideology that works to fuse Christian religion and national identity together. This is the same driving force that has used the bible to justify disposition of indigenous peoples, slavery amongst nations, and authoritarian governments.

Now, how could such an entity be one “ordained by God”?

Surely, the Lord of love and mercy would say otherwise. As stated by Jesus and written in scripture, “They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules” [Matthew 15:9]." These same words hold up today, largely through a country pushing this nationalist agenda. 

1 Timothy 1:15 states, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. 

When Christ walked this earth, his mission was to save lost souls, not governments or regimes– but people. If we take a look at America, we could easily note how difficult our leaders have made it for everyday people, who are often overlooked. This in itself contradicts the teachings of Christ. 

Here’s a little about Jesus: he was born a refugee who fled from persecution, came up humbly working as a carpenter, and was most importantly, a radical leader– spending his time with and educating the marginalized groups of the world (e.g., the impoverished, sex-workers,  and Gentiles). In doing so, he paved the route and showed us the true meaning of “loving thy neighbor”. This entails looking past race, ethnicity, and class, because through his power, love surpasses worldly identity. 

Allow me to insert two facts about myself– I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I am also a Black Woman in America. In addition to these two facts are two others about this country– In its true form, America is a western stagefront– manufactured to conquer above all else, hence my previous mention of the Discovery Doctrine. This country is also a system that prides itself on and under God. But how can the two coincide with each other? Is it even possible? 

In 1791, the First Amendment, [located in The Bill of Rights], incorporated the concept of separation of church and state. This, in simplistic terms, was meant to prevent the government from enforcing its own church. The amendment also created a sense of neutrality in regards to religion. For this, I am thankful. I have been able to express my religious customs freely, all while being able to walk into areas where others and their theologies have room to take up space. But even stating this as a lived experience, sits generally false.

Every day, we hear stories of marginalized groups in congregations, targeted in the nature of propagandic teachings, bigotry, and so much more. Just last month (September 2025), a white supremacist threatened to actively kill and terrorize practicing muslims at a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan. This is only scratching the surface to some of the extremities hate has taken to silence the voices of other religions. 

Furthermore, these same acts have been seen immensely throughout the Black Christian Church. The 1963 KKK bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, which killed four little girls, has haunted generations as a silent reminder of our enduring exclusion in this country. I could go on endlessly about these instances, but the recurring pattern is one of domination and the relentless pursuit of power in the name of white supremacy. 

This notion of supremacy often overlaps with nationalist ideologies, using Christianity and economic fears to justify the “purification” of the nation (as seen with Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Groups like Turning Point USA further reinforce this, targeting youth and grooming them into the ideology of Western “Christian” conservatism. The impact of this harm continues to produce mentally unstable and neo-Nazi-minded young people. These influences pacify their terroristic desires and tell them that they’re justified through God, just as this country's Founding Fathers. We’ve seen this with religious center threats, bombings, school shootings, and cyber attacks. With the authority of Christian Nationalism, we’re starting to see this with ICE agents and political leaders. Through the continuation of this agenda, we will see a growth of domestic terrorists in places of enforcement and power. 

So what are followers of Christ to do in this reality? 

When Jesus walked this earth, it is historically recorded what he did and how he acted upon his call to reconcile people with God. Christ guided and educated disciples in their youth. The disciple John was likely a teenager when he was called to Christ, while the others’ ages spanned from adolescence to Peter, who was thought to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Jesus knew to reach the youth because that is undeniably where the future starts– but he didn’t do so in the way many leaders do today. Instead of teaching the ways of a religious agenda, Jesus showed his followers how to live and educate radically against worldly agendas. In Christ’s movement, there is no space for confusion, no room for political agenda, and absolutely no capacity for hate. 

Just as Jesus intended us to live by love, so shall we do, as followers in today’s world. Before, it was Jesus condemning the religious leaders for living hypocritically and against outward appearance. Today, it is we who must denounce the strategic and perverse ways of Christian Nationalism and live by the truth that is Jesus Christ.