the many races of ariana grande
races are now fast fashion for celebrities to don.
Ariana Grande is extremely successful. Not just at singing, but at changing her race every few years or so. While I haven’t listened to much of her music, I’m endlessly fascinated (for some inexplicable reason) by her ability to morph into a different caricature of yet another race. She’s currently back in her white woman era, in case you weren’t aware. So proud you can finally accept your natural race, girl! Her constant urge to change her appearance so drastically hasn’t flown under the radar, though it has never gotten to the point where she’s had to address it. That’s not to say that people are letting it go, though; plenty of people, both fans and not, have called her out on her blatant appropriation of different races. However, enough of her fans accept it so that she’s never mentioned (or apologised for perpetuating harmful ideals to young women) it to this day. What does this say about the fetishisation of certain ethnic features and the desire to stay in the loop with trends? And our complacency in it? I think Grande is a good example of how select features of a particular ethnicity can briefly be considered a ‘trend’ in today’s objectifying capitalist society. Some people might say, ‘Oh, it’s great that we can find ethnic features beautiful and desirable!’ but they would be ignoring the very slim margin of what is considered so. You can want to be tanned, but never too dark. You can want big lips but not a big nose that often comes along with said lips. You can want ‘fox eyes’ but not monolids. This is picking and choosing body parts without having to live through the experience of a person of colour who was born with these features. It’s shopping for a new skin like an avatar in a video game or like those who adopt a new aesthetic inspired by TikTok every month (but this isn’t just tomato girl or coquette). (These trends also tend to arise on short form social media such as TikTok, which will move on in a few months, and everyone who got tweakments will have to go get them reversed.) It’s blurring the lines like a chameleon. It’s rendering the very real struggles of POC inconsequential and insignificant and meaningless.
And we also can’t disregard the fact that people like Grande—who constantly change their appearance to stay what is considered conventionally attractive at the current moment—profit immensely from it. In her ‘7 rings’ music video Grande appears to borrow (read: appropriate) numerous different cultures, including Black rap and R&B flows and Japanese kanji and aesthetics (small charcoal grill, anyone?). Despite the controversial aspects of the video, 7 rings charted at number one in over 28 countries. It seems like enough people don’t mind her clear appropriation of multiple cultures all in the span of a few minutes. Many of her fans will also defend her till the ends of the earth. This speaks to how easily our society will still follow and support such disrespectful behaviour. While I’m not necessarily saying one should stop appreciating the art of a controversial person (that’s a conversation for another day), I think it’s important we become less complacent in allowing celebrities, who have such a large sphere of influence, to get off scot free. Ariana has not acknowledged how her actions can create further ignorance and dismissive attitudes to the lived experiences of POC. They cannot simply change their race or escape the effects of being born into a body that is deemed lesser by the systemic racism embedded in our society. But now, she’s whiter and blonder than ever. Has she ditched her fast fashion shopping behaviours for good, or will she shift again? Or is this era only because of her movie Wicked, in which her character is also blonde and white? That’s also not to mention that at her wedding and on one of her Vogue covers, she appeared as a white woman too—was her shedding of fake tan a symbol of whiteness being pure? I think we should be more concerned how easy it is for someone to completely change their racial identity for specific occasions. White when it’s important, POC for when she needs to make money. At the end of the day, none of us can change or affect Grande’s choices, but we can instead educate ourselves and learn from her insensitive decisions. As soon as this skin doesn’t suit her, she will throw it away into landfill as soon as it’s out of season (which is to say, very quickly).
it's interesting to see how celebrities can perpetrate some of the worst parts of our society's systemic issues and how easily they can get away with it.
your writing is beautiful. would you like to be mutuals omg??😿🤍