I Wanna Be A Star: How Famous Can A Woman Be?

TW: Murder, and SA mentioned.

What goes up must come down, and for women in Hollywood, the turnaround is worse than the ruthless law of physics.

When Chappell Roan pointed into the sea of photographers, telling one to “shut the fuck up!” at the 2024 VMAs, we could have predicted it as the end of her being on the good side of the general public. In the moment, many applauded her public display of boundary-setting in the face of invasive paparazzi. Her behavior throughout the rest of 2024 until now has seemed to ruffle every feather across the Internet.

This came shortly after she took to her TikTok and created two videos discussing how she views her encounters with fans and/or people who just want a picture. Discourse around Roan floated around the Internet for months, calling her a performative activist or an ungrateful pop star, claiming that she “hates” her career (making music and performing it). It all follows the typical timeline of an all-too repetitive cycle in the entertainment industry, where a woman skyrockets to fame and must experience every negative part of the comedown. 

Musicians have a particularly niche struggle with this, as they are the product. They are attempting to sell who they are for your listening pleasure. In July of 2023, it was announced that 1) Ariana Grande and her now ex-husband had been separated for months, and 2) that Grande was now dating her Wicked costar Ethan Slater, who also had been through a sudden divorce.

The Internet was quick to find any piece of evidence that further pushed the notion that Grande was a serial homewrecker. She and Slater faced immense hate right up until about the time that the actual film came out. By then, the masses were obsessed with the screen adaptation, and her “Eternal Sunshine” world tour sold out in minutes. As of now, she is back! But this only comes after she faced her many, many ups and downs of fame.

Actresses tend to fall into a similar fate, depending on their rise to fame. Jennifer Lawrence, one of the youngest to ever win an Academy Award for Best Actress, star of acclaimed franchise films such as X-Men: First Class and The Hunger Games series, and much more, was hated by the general public for being too quirky.

Yes, abusers and known bigots walk around Hollywood, still grabbing prestigious awards and leading box office hits, but liking pizza a little too loudly was just enough for audiences everywhere to get to know Lawrence. Her image of relatability worked until people decided it didn’t; she was accused of performing her ordinary traits to just appeal to mass audiences, because how could a woman actually remain humble after being the highest paid actress in Hollywood? 

The term “media training” unfortunately became every user’s favorite buzzword to describe the behavior of any public-facing person, usually in the place of entertainment. The phrase had its big run when Broadway, movie, and pop star Renee Rapp was on her Mean Girls (2024) press tour. Her unfiltered humor quickly went viral for the fact that she “wasn’t media trained.” She cussed in the junkets and called out bus drivers, and many were obsessed with this presentation of authenticity from a famous actress. While many who work in public relations and communications know that literally everyone has this so-called “media training,” this display of what seemed to be a lack of it had the usual “charming-until-it wasn’t” effect for Rapp, and some turned to call her behavior obnoxious and too abrasive for Hollywood.

The same standard never seems to be in place, however, for men. New HBO star of Heated Rivalry, Hudson Williams, has many fawning over his sarcastic personality and "lack of media training”. From throwing up middle fingers on red carpets to his somewhat crass answers in interviews, he has won over the hearts of millions of fans in the span of just a few months. The difference in treatment is glaringly different to anyone paying any type of attention. 

Rachel Zegler had a spotlight on her from the age of seventeen after making her feature film debut in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story (2021). Her impressive vocals and humble high school theater background were enough to be on the good side of the public. Of course, this didn’t last long as she made a joke about how doing a film like Shazam was for the money, or how Snow White maybe needed a revamp after nearly a century for the live-action remake.

This massive campaign against her was also propelled by her outspoken support of Palestine and her public condemnation of the genocide. Her use of literal free speech led the film to underperform at the box office, which is just wildly ridiculous. Although her talent speaks for itself as she continues to succeed, the harm that comes with mass hatred needs to be acknowledged. 

In June of 2015, musician and actress Christina Grimmie was shot and killed at a meet and greet in Orlando, Florida. While the investigation that followed the tragedy pointed to signs of an obvious motive for murder, her killer was found to have had an “unhealthy and unrealistic infatuation” with Grimmie.

A musician, excited to hug and share a moment with someone she thought to be a safe fan of her art, ended her life on account of an obsession and a lack of protection. While this tragedy holds no direct correlation to any of the cultural moments or women above, it calls into question just how much the Internet and the general public care for the safety of women.

The horrific events and revelations that have come out of elite Hollywood’s sexual abuse rings (i.e., Epstein's Island, Diddy’s house)  are trivialized and desensitized for mass consumption via algorithm. 

Jokes have flooded mine and many others’ feeds about Roan’s security and her relationship to her fans in public, and while it can be fun to point and laugh now, we have to wonder what may be next for her. Will someone try to break that boundary in a way that no one is prepared for? What will she have to do to ensure her safety? She is quite literally banned from performing at Todo Mundo by the mayor of Rio de Janeiro. Chris Brown has a recorded history of abuse toward women, and yet every year without fail, his albums sell, and fans push for him to perform at the Super Bowl. All Time Low is still headlining Warped Tour. And to be frank, it's exhausting.

It's exhausting to see this onslaught of smear campaigns against women constantly, and to find casual misogyny in every conversation around women.

The everyday woman posting a slice of her family life on the Internet or a bit of her relationship unwillingly becomes the center of what could be a Vogue think-piece. A makeup routine becomes a comment section of suggestions. A documented fitness journey becomes a forum for body-shaming.

There is no answer or right way for a woman to be famous, because it's nearly impossible to just exist at times. 

To be a woman in this age is hard enough, so I say, let Chappell Roan be as (allegedly) rude as she wants to be. Who cares?