November 13 is World Kindness Day, so hopefully, on Saturday, you held off on screaming at your lousy no-good upstairs neighbor for at least 24 hours.
Someone who did not forget was Lady Gaga, who deployed the forces of her Born This Way Foundation and released a 30-minute short film about “kindness, mental health, and the strong connection between the two.”
In the video, launched Friday on Facebook and on the website of Born This Way’s Channel Kindness project, Gaga staged a group encounter with 11 young people to discuss, among other topics, the stigma that still surrounds mental health. The film is divided into four parts: kindness to self, kindness to others, kindness to community, and building a kinder future.
Though the topic is serious, no Gaga production can exist without glamour. “Let me roll through this rock garden,” the recipient of 13 Grammys and one Academy Award said as she approached the rainforest-like set wearing pink boots with scimitar-length heels. She received some well-deserved “yaaases.”
“I am, I have been, and I always will be on a mental health journey,” she continued, noting the group should feel free to address her as “L.G.” or “Gaga” or “whatever you guys want.”
Though she caveated that she is not a therapist or doctor, she offered small but concrete bits of advice from her own experience. “I so much love to ask people—instead of ‘how are you?’—‘how you feelin’?” she said. This little verbal tweak, she explained, opens up a forum to kindness that can reflect back “even when I’m having trouble feeling kind to myself.”
Midway through the short film, psychologist and author Dr. Alfiee Breland-Noble joined the group. She asked members to stand if any of the questions she posed applied to them. On the topic of “have you ever had suicidal thoughts?” everyone in the group rose. (Gaga made her past challenges with this issue publicly known last year.)
World Kindness Day is the brainchild of the nonprofit World Kindness Movement, an organization created in Tokyo in 1997 and now based out of Australia. Representatives from 27 nations are part of this non-governmental body, but this does not include, alas, the United States. (So give yourself a break if you’ve never heard of it before.)
Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, co-founded with her mother Cynthia Germanotta, will celebrate its 10-year anniversary in February. It has initiated a slew of programs that aim to end bullying and promote positive mental health for young people.
In addition to putting in a decade of good work, the talented Gaga will soon appear in theaters in the Oscar-tipped House of Gucci. That someone so clearly righteous and kind can portray a conniving murderess is all the evidence you need of her acting prowess.
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