Does Beckham Dream of Clean Countertops?

There’s a scene in the Netflix documentary “BECKHAM” that has stuck with me. After everyone’s gone to bed following a family dinner, David Beckham stays behind to clean the kitchen.

It’s an indelible scene capturing a cute moment. Kitchen-countertop-cleaning-Beckham says: “The fact that when everyone’s in bed, I then go around, clean the candles, turn the lights to the right setting, make sure everywhere’s tidy, because I hate coming down in the morning and there’s cups and plates and bowls … it’s tiring.”

He adds, “It’s tiring going around to every single candle, cleaning it, clipping the wick … I clip the candle wicks, I clean the glass, it’s my pet hate, the smoke around the inside of the candle. I know, it’s weird.”

The director(s) clearly trying to make a celebrity ex-footballer turned sports tycoon worth $450MM (and making $50MM a year) and who happens to be married to a Spice Girl seem just…like the rest of us. Or are they just taken aback by Beckham’s cleanliness? Did they forget that this kitchen is within a £12MM estate? Are they wondering where the staff is, implying that no family member ever washes the dishes? How differently can one live on a $50MM-a-year salary, after all?

It’s not just cynicism or anti-capitalistic pigotry (it’s like bigotry but when you’re also a pig). I’m sincerely puzzled by the significance of this scene, what it has to say about the world that we live in. In reality TV, everything has been edited, planted, produced, manufactured. Every scene is there for a reason, whether it was planned or happened “organically”.

I don’t understand fame or extreme wealth. But maybe one thing that $450MM gets you is the peace of mind, the time and space, to clean your kitchen’s countertops tonight, and the assurance that you will get to do that, if you wanted, tomorrow? That, somehow, in a twisted and absurd reality, one flavor of uber wealth is premium mediocre?

Are we disappointed by Beckham? Disgusted? Inspired? Is David a zen master? Who gets to carve out time and space to truly enjoy cleaning your own kitchen after dinner? Is this a privilege double-slap or a rude awakening?

Maybe next time we clean the kitchen countertops we consider that we might just already be… living the dream. At least according to Becks.