The film director turned influencer has been promoting a weird range of products – including full body health scans, spa pools and mattresses.
Amid Instagram’s amorphous scroll of pyjama pants that look like work pants and skincare that looks like a glue stick, it really looked like Taika Waititi was announcing news of a terrible illness to his audience of three million. My thumb stopped urgently at the sight of him dressed in medical scrubs, smiling meekly from inside an enormous full body MRI scanner. The text caption was lengthy, which my one half-open eye recognised as Very Serious News.
But as I pried my other eye open, it became clear that this was not a heartfelt health update, but an advertisement for a full “preventative” body scan service with a bougie private American health company called Prenuvo. Endorsed by leading scientists such as Kim Kardashian, Miranda Kerr and Boone from Lost, a 60-minute scan costs around $4000 NZD and purports to detect early signs of cancer, aneurysms, liver diseases and other abnormalities.
Hollywood may be scanning themselves silly, but experts aren’t entirely convinced. In April 2023, the American College of Radiology released a statement that “there is no documented evidence that total body screening is cost-efficient or effective in prolonging life.” They also voiced concern that “the identification of numerous non-specific findings will not ultimately improve patients’ health but will result in unnecessary follow-up testing and procedures.”
In his post, the Academy Award winning director said that he was hoping to better understand his “life health status” through the scan. “The aim is to see everything and deal with anything that might pop up. Preventive action baby,” he wrote. In one video, he paces around in scrubs waxing lyrical about taking control of your health, being proactive, and catching “catastrophes” early on. “Let’s go have a look and see if there’s any catastrophes I need to deal with.”
Alas, the biggest catastrophe of all is what happened in the comments after he posted it. “I wish this kind of care was affordable for all people,” wrote one commenter, gaining nearly 2000 likes. Nearly as popular was this comment: “Awesome man. Took me 4 months to get approved for an MRI for an active issue. Being rich seems great.” It went on and on. “I love this. Can poor people use it?” “It’s giving healthcare inequality.” “What in the rich people hobbies is this?”
While many comments came from America, ranked last in this recent report into the healthcare systems of 10 high income countries, some local voices weighed in too. “How many of the whānau on the east coast are accessing that my bro? Not even easy to see a GP down those ways, nice to see that a rich man like you will be ok,” wrote one commenter. “It takes four weeks just to get into see a GP in Aotearoa brother. Good to have the $$$$ I guess,” said another.
Another question came up again and again in the comments: “I don’t understand why you would even accept a sponsorship like this. It’s not like you need the money.” It’s a good point. While we can’t begrudge out-of-work local actors hawking Wattie’s frozen meals between gigs, Waititi is rich. Really rich. $10.5 million Pt Chev property rich. $6 million diamonds to the Met Gala rich. $17,000 camera given to him by Jason Momoa rich.
It’s not even the first time Waititi has done a weird sponsored deal. In March he shilled for a hot tub company: “No bs lights, 400 jets or annoying bucket seats, just classic, timeless tubs.” Not long after, he collaborated with a mattress company: “I’ve been sleeping in these @Casper cots for a few years now and honey, I am telling you… if you prefer the inside of your eyelids to anything else on god’s green earth, these beds are the freakin realiest of the dealiest.”
Which brings us back to the central question: why? An anonymous source from The Spinoff office posited that the shift to influencer could be traced to when Waititi married popstar Rita Ora. Not only did he become half a Samoan in that moment, he also became half of an extremely marketable celebrity power couple. The pair have hosted music awards together, featured on the cover of Vogue, and even starred in whatever this cooking video is.
During our robust editorial conversation, another anonymous source suggested that perhaps he’s immersing himself in scary dystopian health tech to prepare for an upcoming role in the much-teased Elysium sequel. Or, given that he claimed in his sponsored mattress post to be asleep for 78% of his life, maybe Waititi has simply been in a deep storybook slumber for most of the year and is signing social media partner contracts from the land of nod.
Whatever the reason, it’s clear that Waititi’s latest foray into promoting inaccessible and scientifically contested health technology hasn’t gone well, even with the generous discount code for his followers. “TAIKA WAITITI cares about you and so do we. That’s why we’re giving you $300 off your Whole Body scan,” the site reads. Waititi came back with a clear scan, but someone should tell him you don’t need a flash machine to detect an out of touch rich guy.