The Goop Lab didn't tell Netflix in advance before shooting up-close images of women’s vulvas and footage of a woman masturbating

Los Angeles Times

“They say it’s better to take action and ask permission later,” says executive producer Shauna Minoprio, who was wary of getting bogged down in discussions with the streaming service. “What we decided to do was just go and shoot it, then put it all together and hope that it worked — and that I would still have a career in this industry after this.” As the Los Angeles Times' Meredith Blake reports, the footage was filmed inside the apartment of 90-year-old sex educator Betty Dodson with a small, all-female crew. They also enlisted the help of Dodson's business partner, Carlin Ross. "Even though Ross was willing to show her vulva on camera, producers felt it was important to show many different kinds of bodies," reports Blake. "So Ross reached out via email to women who’d participated in her workshops and shared photos of their genitalia. 'I tried to remember everyone’s vulva styles,' she says, so that they’d have a range. The women had to sign a 20-page release and include a copy of their driver’s license with the pictures."

ALSO:

• The Goop Lab is a performance of a performance: "All of television, including and especially 'reality' television, is a performance," says Alison Herman. "Goop itself is a performance of a leisurely yet rigorously maintained prosperity, both material and spiritual. The Goop Lab is therefore a performance of a performance, neither an unvarnished account of the inner workings of Paltrow’s empire nor trying all that hard to pass as one. The specific employees who appear in the show are no doubt carefully chosen and thoroughly vetted; the meetings, conspicuously lacking in numbers talk or jargon terms like 'SEO,' are no doubt tangential at best to actual decision-making. But like all performances, this one sends a message: You too can toggle easily between hyperproductivity and radical honesty at the office if you live your life according to Goop’s monetized playbook."
• Lowbrow TV with high production values, The Goop Lab is the most unsettling kind of sponcon—the soulful kind
• Our crappy healthcare system is to blame for The Goop Lab
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