Essential Stakeholders: Is Kirsten Dunst’s Nanny an “Essential” Worker? Dispatches from Studio New Zealand

Abstract

Aotearoa New Zealand weathered the initial impacts of COVID better than most other parts of the globe. A virus elimination strategy was implemented in March 2020, which involved highly restricted borders and a 14-day isolation period for arrivals to the country. Against this backdrop, this chapter examines the ideological underpinnings of a debate that waged during the pandemic over who and what was deemed “essential” work. I argue that the wider tropes that characterized New Zealand at this time, a film studio, a bunker and a hermit kingdom, illuminate a set of racist and sexist norms that are inseparable from New Zealand’s history as a British settler colony. Using the case of public outcry against a singular film industry care worker, I use these tropes to highlight the extent to which the demands of pandemic-charged capitalism were prioritized in crisis communications during the Delta and Omicron waves of the outbreak.