How Parks And Recs' Bloosh Parodied Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop
Parks And Recreation's lifestyle email Bloosh is a not at all subtle parody of Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop. The cast of Parks And Recs is an embarrassment of riches, featuring the likes of Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Audrey Plaza, Rashida Jones, Rob Lowe and many, many more. Despite the wealth of talent the first season was famously a little messy, but it soon locked in its comic formula to become a classic sitcom.
Parks And Recs ended up running for seven seasons, coming to a close back in 2015. The cast recently returned for A Parks And Recreations Special, which saw the characters reuniting over video chat to update each other on how they're dealing with life in quarantine. This special received praise but given how busy the cast is, it seems unlikely the show will ever return for a revival. That said, the occasional special seems like a good alternative.
Parks And Recs season 6 episode "Recall Vote" featured a subplot where a chair Ron Swanson designed is featured on popular lifestyle email Bloosh. This is headed by CEO and local celebrity Annabel Porter (Erinn Hayes), and it's clear from Ron's introduction to her the two are on different planets, especially when she introduces him to specialty item Beef Milk, which sells for $60, despite the fact - as Ron himself bluntly points out - its literally just milk.
Annabel herself is one of Parks And Recs' most perfectly formed guest characters and acts as a parody of celebrity-backed wellness brands. She also gets some killer lines, like the fact she doesn't eat meals but has "food teases," including "oat wedges and seaweed lozenges.” Bloosh specifically feels like a playful parody of Goop, the wellness lifestyle brand headed by actress Gwyneth Paltrow. The company has proven very popular and like Bloosh itself, started as a lifestyle email. Goop has often faced controversy, however, for the prices of its products and making questionable claims relating to health and wellbeing, including promoting coffee enemas.
2020 also saw the launch of The Goop Lab, a six-part Netflix series hosted by Paltrow herself and covering topics like sexuality, energy healing and mediumship. Naturally, the show was again hit with claims of pseudoscience and received very mixed reviews, though it did come with a disclaimer stating it wasn't offering medical advice. Gwyneth Paltrow isn't the only celebrity heading up a popular wellness brand, and Parks And Recs Bloosh is ultimately a knock on brands that spout gibberish or promote products that are outside the price range of many consumers.