Just down the street from where Columbia University protesters are still wreaking havoc in New York City, the Met Gala wrapped its opulent night of fashion, beauty − and hypocrisy.

The Met Gala gets a little more repugnant every year, but this year might have been the best example yet of why Hollywood shines at the height of its hypocrisy. Stars flocked to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday in gauche opulence, hardly giving a side eye to the world's chaos, inflation, war and poverty that the price of their tickets could diminish with ease.

Each year brings a specific theme that attendees, who are mostly Hollywood artists and New York fashion icons, incorporate into their outlandish but occasionally gorgeous costumes. This year's theme to raise money for The Costume Institute was bizarrely titled "Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion," and "The Garden of Time" acted as the dress code.

The event is intended to be an art-based fundraiser to expand the world of art. It is a chance for Hollywood and New York elites with an interest or career in fashion to experiment and execute fashion concepts with big names and designers, brands and industries.

There's nothing wrong with art for art's sake and beauty has its place in the world. It could be argued that we need this kind of distraction now more than ever. But the need for a distraction is a problem that we can't ignore. We don't live in the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty (although even she had her enemies).

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