March 8, 2019 • 39 mins
Miranda Hawkins gives Anney a rundown on Ariana Grande's music video 'Thank U, Next', and questions around what it is to be 'woke'.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to Stefan Never
told you. Today we are once again joined by guest
co host Miranda. Thanks for joining as Miranda, I'm glad
(00:27):
to be back. Yeah. You might recognize Miranda from our
episode All Around Consent and No meaning no the first time.
But when we were first talking about ideas that you
were interested in doing, you pitched an episode about Ariana
grand Day and you said we need to do it
soon because it's timely. And I, as I've said on
(00:51):
the show before, I don't know much about Ariana Grande.
She has come up on this show a lot um,
so I was like, timely, Okay, we better get on it. Yeah,
as I mentioned before, I'm pretty much out of the
loop when it comes already on a grand date. But
my phone is determined to fix that. I swear every
(01:11):
day I get an update, a news update, Ariana Grande
does this. Yeah, she's been she's been all up in
the news lately. Yeah it seems so. It seems so.
But to you, this is one of the reasons you're
here because you have you have a pretty decent amount
of Ariana Grandie knowledge. At this point, I'm like stuffed
to the brim. You know so much about her and
(01:34):
I'm not, and I'm just like, okay, how did we
get here? But we're here, we are here, and we're
not just talking about like Ariana grand Day. We're going
to touch on other things, right, Yes, yes, definitely. There
was some controversy about her thank You Next video that
I wanted to talk about because it had a big
impact on me, which is why I was so vocal
(01:55):
about wanting to talk about Ariana Grande. Right, well, I
love it. UM. Always down to learn more about pop culture,
and one of the things that we're going to be
talking about that this controversy specifically is wokeness. Yes, so
we thought we would. As always, it's good to start
(02:15):
with the definition, um and actually finding a definition is
hard to find, and I think after we go into
some of the history that will become clear. Why. But
from Urban Dictionary quote, being woke means being aware, knowing
what's going on in the community, and it started as
a term used primarily among the black activist community on
(02:37):
social media. Nowadays, it has been largely appropriated by white
mainstream internet culture, and it is often used as a
joke or to poke fun at wokeness. It has fractured
into multiple meanings, and a lot of them conflict directly
with each other. Yes, you see it a lot on
Twitter and you know Facebook and lots of social media. Yeah. Absolutely,
(03:01):
um and so like a quick rundown quick history. The
generally accepted first usage of woke with this definition came
from a song from two thousand eight called a Master
Teacher by Erica Badou, and it also had Bilal and
Georgia and Muldrow basically seeing about a future where she
dreams of very kind of a much better future, but
(03:25):
knows that it will probably never happen. And at the
time there was a lot of confusion around what she
meant by woke. You can go back on the Internet
and there's all this like Yahoo answers, what did it mean?
Trying to dissect to get to the bottom of it,
especially among white people, confusion. Uh. Two years later, in
two ten, you might have seen stay woke on Twitter,
(03:46):
but generally it referred to actually trying to stay away
were sired. By twenty eleven, people had a more nuanced
understanding of the line I stay woke from Master Teacher.
Again Yahoo answers, you can find it it's kind of
funny now. And with the death of Trayvon Martin and
(04:07):
his killer Andrew Zimmerman found not guilty and the Russian
rock group Pussy Riot being threatened with jail time for
their queer sexual protest performance, Eric Kabadu came out in
solidary with the band on Twitter with this tweet truth
requires no belief, Stay awoke. Watch closely hashtag free Pussy Riot,
And that's kind of when stay awoke in the since
(04:29):
we use it now started to become more common on
social media, especially when expressing outrage around Andrew Zimmerman's lack
of punishment or other things like that. Because unfortunately there
are a lot of things um around. We see the
meming and co opting of stay woke. It was applied
to all sorts of things, and worth noting the hashtag
(04:52):
black Lives Matter, which was often a counterpart or used
at the same time with the hashtags they woke, was
not widely adopted it and instead around this time is
when we start to see the rise of all lives
matter that hashtag. BuzzFeed helped popularize woke in twenty with
the article can we talk about how woke? Matt mcgory
(05:13):
was in discussing the sympathy of the white heterosist actor
on the TV show How to Get Away with Murder
towards the gender and racial inequality, and then h MTV
in sixteen labeled woke on freak in teenage slaying Yes,
(05:33):
Oh goodness indeed. And then soon after stay woke became
sort of a joke on Twitter. People would use it,
I don't know for for pretty much anything like my
my leggings don't fit. Stay woke like anything. Yeah, And
then from there its usage really fractured, and it's a
way to criticize typically white people who think they are
(05:56):
woke are to make fun of the idea of wokeness altogether.
But a sort of tragic that this thing that was
really part of the black activist social community got appropriated
and now it's really deluded and also just means directly
conflicting things. Yeah. And and also it's like, you know,
trying to be more aware. Like at first I was like, hey,
(06:18):
this is like the specific what it means trying to
be more aware, and like, I mean, as as time
has gone on, especially since the presidency, um, you know,
people are trying to be more aware. Um, So it's like,
how now do you define that in in what space?
You know? Without using where It's like this, right, um,
and I a couple of years ago, I was covering
(06:39):
afro Punk, which, if you don't know what that is,
it's a music festival that celebrates all things blackness and
also has these panels about activism and social issues. And
you can hear Bridget on Afropunk Solution Sessions that podcast.
And one of the things that came up a lot
when we were doing personal on the street interviews are
just interviewing random people who walked by. Was this in
(07:00):
noyance at how the term woke was used, and most
people I spoke with um said that you are never woke.
A lot of people they expressed this thing where it's
like something you always strive for, but since we're all human,
we all have so much to learn, you were never
truly woke. You're always kind of working towards it, and
that's what woke is. If that makes sense. I actually
(07:23):
think that makes more sense because I know someone who's
trying to be better. You know, I'm never going to
be there, and if you ever think you're there, you're
most likely not exactly exactly. So that's kind of a
brief history of the term, and it relates to a
right on a grand day. I've told so many people
(07:45):
doing this and they're like, what do you mean. I'm like,
you'll see, but yeah, yeah, it totally makes sense that
and we're gonna I mean, it's about Ariana Grande. It
is about Ariana Grande, but it's about a think piece
that was done on her thinking next video. But it
encompasses this idea of being woke but also being too woke.
Quotation marks right. And one of the reasons you wanted
(08:11):
to do this, if I recall, because the music video
you went on a bit of a tangent. Yeah. Yeah,
So I don't know if you've seen the music video.
Have you watched it yet? Okay, no, all right, it's okay. So,
I um, I really like music videos in general. I
will like spend a night at home watching music videos
(08:32):
drinking wine. I just it's something I enjoyed doing, even
if I don't like the artist of it. If the
you know, music videos entertaining, I'm like, okay, cool. So
I went on an arian A Grande kick. I've never
really listened to her music It's not that I don't
know she's talented, but I'm more of a Selena Gomez
kind of person, and I think you're normally one or
the other. Yeah, that sends to be how I've seen
it separate. Um so I'm more Selena Gomez as far
(08:56):
as like you know her music, but um, arian A Grande. Anyways,
I went down an arian Grande music video hole and
to the point where I even like, did a little
video trying to mimic something she was doing. Totally failed.
The baby gate fell on me, but it was it
was totally fine. I got to see it. It It was
pretty epic. Um. Yeah, So I had just had just
(09:17):
gotten into her because of the music videos, and then
this music video came out, and then this think piece
came out and it was this huge controversy blow up,
and I just I got lost in a lot of fields,
being very unsure of what was going on, which is
why initially brought this up. But before we get too
far into that, I do want to be clear. I
know that there's a lot going on with Ariana Grande
right now, between her Seven Rings music video and taking
(09:40):
things from other artists, there's a lot of appropriation between that,
the music video Seven Rings itself, her black sense being
called out for that. People are saying she's doing digital
black face. To talk about a bit more about later,
and then also heard tattoo fiasco where she tried to
get seven rings in Japanese on her hand and if
(10:02):
you take the characters separately, it does say once as
seven once. It's like rings and stuff, but the way
that she put them together it's a like small charcoal grill,
a small charcoal grills. And then she tried to fix
it and then it said like small charcoal grill in
the finger or something. I'm not seven fingers, which closer
(10:26):
I mean you need seven fingers if you're gonna wear
seven rings. Well, no you don't at all. I don't
wear much jewelry. I don't need It's okay. And then
she's also getting sued right now to for another music video,
her God is a Woman music video supposedly um Are
allegedly she it's like a federal copyright infringement. There's a
(10:47):
scene in the video where this artist is saying that
it's like almost exactly like something he painted that was
copyrighted back in so she's just kind of getting hit
left and right, um with appropriating culture and things not
being her own, and yeah, she's not doing so hot
and yet and all my phone wants to alert me
(11:10):
about she's gotten really popular out of late. But yes,
but we're gonna talk about thank You next. So I know,
as you said, you hadn't seen it, but thank You
next as an homage to nineties pop culture. Mean Girls
bring it on legally Blonde, and there's even a little
bit of thirteen going on thirty. It was very like short, short,
little clips. Took me a second, but I was like, oh, yeah,
(11:30):
that's what's going on. Everyone was very excited when they're
excited about the song because she's basically saying thank you
to all my exes and she calls him by name
and all the things she learned from them, but you know,
moving on, and she and her now ex fiance recently
split last year. Yeah last year. Yeah, Pete Davidson, and
he's even included in that, but she says her actual name.
But it's supposed to be like this heartfelt, uplifting song.
(11:54):
But everyone was super stoked because of the Mean Girls
mainly that was like the main theme through all of it.
And then the other stuff was like interspersed. But it
was really great because they even like pulled like some
of the original like actors and actresses from these movies,
and they had like a whole bunch of cameos and
I don't know, it was a lot of fun. And
if you grew up and you watched those and you
love those movies, like you're like, oh my god, this
(12:16):
is amazing. Um. Yeah, so I remember watching it being like,
this is great. Didn't really love the song offense, but
I love the music video. Yeah, it's really funny, because
I mean, it's not funny. I suppose I haven't seen
any of those movies, not a single one, so I
probably would have watched it and been like, whoa, something's
happening here. Though I am not picking up. I would
(12:36):
recognize me and girls. Ye um. But I remember when
that music video first came out. It was around the
time that the Avengers trailer came out, and people were
I did I had to look it up because everybody
on Twitter was doing like the first one taught me this,
the second one taught me this, But and I had
(12:58):
no idea what was happening. I did not know that happened.
It did, and I was very confused, Uh, but I
figured it out. I think proud of thank you. But
this just about brings us to the controversy that we're
going to talk about. But first it brings us to
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
(13:29):
we're back, thank you sponsor. So Miranda tell us about
this controversy. Okay. So I follow a trans woman on
Instagram and she is huge in the advocacy world. Um.
She does a lot of tours and does a lot
of speeches, but she also writes for a lot of publications,
(13:49):
including the LGBTQ publication into the online one. So I
ran across an article, um about this music video that
she did, and it was a think piece titled Ariana
Grandes thank You. Next music video is surprisingly anti queer.
Now we're not going to say the author's name, and
it will explain why later. Um. And also that original
(14:12):
article has also been taken down, which we'll talk about
a little later. But I want to go into the
article or the think piece itself first. It really threw
me off when I ran across this piece because as
someone who's constantly trying to learn and be a better
Alley and like just be more conscious of, like, you know,
everything around me. When I saw that and read the
(14:33):
article compared to what I had seen, I was like,
did I completely missed the point? And it really made
me check myself. I was like, am I Like it
really threw me through loop? I was like, am I
so blind? Like that I didn't catch any of this?
Um it turns out that's not the case, but we'll
get into what this author was saying from this music video.
(14:57):
It was a lot yeah, and it and it really
had you know, me thinking. So when the author said
anti queer, one of the things that there's actually a
few different examples, but one of them is queer antagonism.
If you don't know about the newer artist whose name
is Tris Van, he's openly gay. He's really popular for
(15:18):
a song bloom Um, does a few other things. But yeah,
he's really great. He's awesome And so Ariana and Ariana
and him have done a couple of music videos together.
So he was in this one and there's a scene
where she pushes him into the locker and like just
like what walks by and just shoved him to the
locker and he's just like, has this look on his face,
and the author interpreted this as saying that queer people
(15:41):
are glad to be disrespected by someone like Arianna because
it means they're getting attention, even if it's negative attention.
She also had queer phobia, and there at the beginning,
there's another scene where Troy is when he says, like,
Arianna is a lesbian now and dating some chick called Aubrey.
It's making sick, And the author says this is meant
(16:01):
to be in a derisive way, and she even says,
like in the article itself, she said, Arianna is so
offended at the very thought of having a woman as
a lover. She even addressed it at the very beginning
of her music video, and then later on in the
music video there's like so much in like four minutes,
I don't even know. But later in the music video
(16:23):
there's another scene that's interpreted that the author interprets as
anti lesbian or Jennifer Coolidge. Okay, now we're moving on
to legally blonde by the way. Okay, so Jennifer Coolidge.
They're in the beauty parlor and she asked, Arianna, have
you ever gone out with someone that had no teeth?
At all, And the author argues that Arianna smirks while
saying no, and that this is meant to insinuate their
(16:43):
talking about penises, and like it's supposed to be like
white feminism, like supporting her, like heteronormative like ways very strange.
I've never heard anyone referenced teeth with penis, but I
was like, okay, um yeah. And and so the author
also you know, interprets as a scene makes fun like
queer woman the butt of the joke. Um. And then
(17:04):
also in that same scene, a little later on, they
do a bendon snap, you know, the bend snap. Okay,
so they do their own little thing to it. And
supposedly in this like not even a minute long, the
author says, like queer people of color are used as
props here um. And she asserts that at the beginning
(17:25):
of the scene, you see like what looks like queer
game in um. And then that when they get into
the bendon snap part of the beauty polar scene, that
they disappear and that supposedly only leaves presumably straight women
to dance. Now it's not just anti queer, but the
author also says there's trans misogyny in this music video
(17:45):
UM with about seventeen sixteen seventeen seconds and one of
Arianna's backup dancers, Scott Nicholson. He's dressed in a week
and appears to be portraying a trans woman and he's
like talking about Arianda as is she's Regina George from
like Mean Girls, Like oh my goodness, you know. It's
a very short, very quick over in a couple of seconds.
And then at the very end of the music video,
christ Jenner, who's supposed to be Regina George's mom, she
(18:09):
she stumbles out of like uh like there at their
daughters are at the Mean Girl scene of UM and
the auditorium and she stumbles out of the seats and
with like her video camera and she's like thank you.
Next bit and it's like hilarious but anyways, UM, But
the author says that this is supposed to be a
dig at Caitlyn Jenner Chris's X. And then the last
thing that I want to touch on is black face.
(18:31):
So at forty seven seconds, and there's a scene of
Ariana writing in her burned book. She definitely has a
very dark tan. She's much darker than usual. UM. The
author accuses ariana black face throughout the video, noting are
you on a skin? Varies in shade seen to scene
in a horrifying transformation, highlighting how little she cares about
communities of color. Now, again, as I said at the beginning,
(18:52):
as someone who's been working trying to educate myself, I
was super thrown off because, like some of the things
the author was saying, I was like, okay, some of
it was just I was like, I don't see that, Like,
am I missing it? So it really I don't know.
It made me check myself and I got really uncomfortable
with it. But like I said, it turns out I
did not miss the point. Uh. So I started kind
(19:14):
of following the trend, like reading the comments, reading everything
that was happening, and people were furious. They're like, I
have never seen someone reach like that. The term was
reached so far, people like as a satires was supposed
to be real, like how did you print this? Very
confused and upset. They were just like no, this is
this is like such a reach. And it made me
feel better. I was like, okay, so I you know,
(19:36):
I'm not completely off the beaten path here. I was like,
all right, but even like Roreus Vaughn tweeted about it,
saying this literally can't be real. I'm scream I'm not
sure what he meant by I'm screamed, but okay. UM.
Tatiana RuPaul's drag Race tweeted saying, I'm sorry, but this
is the farthest reaching article I've read in my whole
entire life. So it was not Yeah, it was. It
(19:59):
was not well received. Um. There was actually so much
blowback the editor and she responded personally by apologizing for
even letting this piece like make it online, um, and
then saying that they're going to they're releasing another think
piece in response to this think piece. Okay, now the
follow up think piece. Sorry if this gets confusing. The
(20:21):
thin piece. The thin piece, UM was written by Clarksha
Kent and it's titled there is such thing as two
Woke overbuttled to that ariana think piece, and I really
appreciated the title itself. That she has said that it
was too woke. She doesn't say that the arguments are wrong,
but she does basically like she puts things into context.
(20:42):
Some of the things she did were like that was
just way out in left field, but Kent's peace focus
is mainly on proving that the first article was a
huge miss because of lack of context and evidence. She
does say, though, that the supposed dig at Caitlin nerds,
she does say it's quite libelous and points out that
(21:02):
that was Ariana's idea. So that was you know, because
like everyone was like, how is this at all like
to your ex Okay, so we're gonna go back through
some of the points I initially said and say what
this author said in response to them. So as far
as it being anti queer, the interaction again where Sevan
gets shoved into a locker, I can't argue that the
(21:25):
first author's assertation that queer people at large are glad
to be disrespected and again in quotation Marks, is bold
and couldn't be farther from the truth. She points out
the obvious most of us don't find it enjoyable to
be disrespected. Are very much don't enjoy it in fact. Yeah,
and like even if it's like from someone who I
(21:46):
don't know, I look up to or whatever, I still know, yeah,
that would make me not want to look up to that. Um.
But she also says what most of us are thinking
is like, how does that? How does one then take
that microcoseum of a scene and apply it to every
queer person ever? And it's like two seconds and it's
(22:06):
like it's supposed to be everybody, And I was like,
I don't think that's yeah. Yeah. As for the previous
author saying Savan's sit comment is devisive, can't argue the
author doesn't fully understand how slang works, which is yeah,
I mean I think at some point most of us
has used sick as like something being cool. Yeah, I
(22:29):
know I've used it personally, right, our producer definitely. Um
And Plus later on the song, if you listen to
it fully, Arianne elaborates that she's in a relationship with
Ari a k A herself. So the author like kn't
doesn't say this, But as far as I'm concerned, like
kind of inserting myself a little bit here, I took
(22:50):
it as like it's supposed to be a joke, like
he said it wrong, like like she's in a relationship
with lesbian like all every but it's like, no, she's
in a relationship with herself ari you know. So I
was like, Okay, the whole teeth thing to imply that
she's making fun of people who have no penises. Kent
says that this is combative reading, like the way that
the original author read into it was just so off
the map. And again, I've never heard anyone use teeth
(23:12):
as far as I'm playing penises. So I was like, okay, uh, yeah,
it's a little strange because normally is that a horror
movie where vagina has teeth? But no other is it?
So the vagina? Yeah? Fun side note. That was one
(23:34):
of the first episodes I pitched when I came on
as a host, and I have the outlined ready to go,
but no one wants to talk about it with me.
We can just insert it any here, like let's just
do a little side note. Just thinks a turn. It's
like a podcast within a podcast. I thought you were
listening to an episode about Ariana Grande, but this is
(23:57):
how we bring you in. Ask for using queer people
of color as props. You don't actually have to read
what Kent says to this um, but it is demonstrably false.
If you actually watch the music video, you can see
this is not true. The same visibly queer people who
were there at the beginning of the beauty salon scene
are there for the bandon snaps scene, but Kent does
(24:21):
go on to break down the previous author sentence. The
queer men disappear from the beauty parlor only leaving presumably
straight women to dance. Kent says she was grateful that
presumably was used here because it shows how presumptuous the
author is can't assert. This s line implies queer women
are of no importance and that all women in the
scene are straight, which I hope we all know by
(24:42):
now that you can't tell a person's sexual orientation by
the way they look. So yeah, the the initial author
of the first think piece was definitely kind of leading,
and that was very very off. But again, if you
actually watched music video, very wrong there. I have gone
back and re watches music video multiple times, not only
for the research but also just like checking sure. I
(25:05):
hope that all the people listening to this, like do
you watch just have this and you know, press play
dissect the scene this like I think that could be fun,
but I have a I'm a very big nerd making
a drinking game. I don't know now that okay, okay,
um yeah, And then moving on into the trans misogyny. Um.
(25:29):
As we already talked about earlier, the whole Christian are
yelling thank you, next bitch was actually Arianna's idea. Um,
there's nothing to suggest or link it back to Chris's
ex Caitlin As for the backup dancer addressed as a
woman can't write. She initially read this as Nicholson's character
aiming to be just like Arianna, because again, Arianna is
supposed to be playing Regina George right who if you
(25:50):
watch Me and Girls, everyone wants to be Regina George
and like just is like, oh, just being in her presence? Um,
but she does. Kent does follow up by adding, after
rewatching the video, she isn't sure because she is not
a trans woman, so she would be out of her
lane to dissect this. Um. Kent isn't saying the point
is wrong, but that it suffers from lack of elaboration
and exploration. In considering I'm not a trans woman either,
(26:14):
I also cannot make a claim on it. Um. I
did have the same initial thought that Kent did. Um,
But again I don't know, so I can't say anything
on that either. But I do agree with Kent those
as far as like it does suffer from a little
bit of lack of elaboration and exploration. It was initially
tossed in the original article, right, Yeah, a lot of
this stuff from reading this Kent's peace, it sounds like
(26:38):
context was missing. A lot of context, And Kent does
make a point. I mean we're talking about like some
of the biggest issues, but there's she does bring up
like the context of the videos and like the initial
movies themselves, like that the initial author maybe didn't understand
where like the homage was like coming from, like the
(26:58):
movies themselves, Like I mean, they were the nineties there
white white movies. Other than Bring it On. There's like
no lead black or brown person in them anywhere, really, right, Yeah,
I feel like I haven't seen Bring it On, but
I feel like I've read a lot of critiques that
it is not a good portrayal. No no, no black people.
So yeah, yeah, it sounds like a lot of that
(27:21):
was missing. It was definitely And then coming down to
the black face you know, again, Kent doesn't say the
original authors point of our and is oddly darker skin
tone as black faces. Wrong. She said it flops because
the author who isn't black by the way, doesn't have
the range to argue back her point or to argue
or back up her point. Um knt write. This is
(27:41):
aggravated by the fact that there's no comparative analysis done
between Grande and other white women in pop music, So
you know, she's just like, oh, she's just doing this
black face and leaves it at that. UM can't use
as a more recently named phenomenon of digital black face
to to support her arguments. So were Michelle Jackson did
an article for teen Vogue, and she defined digital black
(28:04):
face as inhabiting black persona using technology to co op
a perceived cache or black cool. Basically, it's white people like. Okay,
so I say g I F because I refused to
get into the argument of gifts or jifts, So I
just d our jives. Okay, we'll go with jives. I
have not heard that one. It is from a PBS
idea channel now defunct YouTube series, but I used to
(28:26):
like it quite a bit. Okay, we'll jive for a life. Okay,
we'll do GIF. I just say g IF because I'm
just not going to do this. I thought it was
like an acronym. I was getting ready to learn really yeah. No,
so yeah, it's yeah, gifts or gifts whatever your preferences. Um,
but basically how we use them to express ourselves on
(28:48):
the internet. Um, but how a lot of us, especially
white people, use mainly women of color to express ourselves,
like when we use g if our gifts, jifts, whatever. Um.
And so it is a term of like it's digital
black face, like it's She wasn't saying that you can't
use them, but like you need to be conscious, like
because like that's what's being put out there, and like
(29:09):
it basically it's another form of appropriation. Yeah. So um.
And in this case though, Kent also says that the
way the Ariana is using it, um, how some people
use it in like Instagram and stuff, is using blackness
as being exotic, right yeah, or that whole ethnicallygus, ethnically ambiguous, Yeah,
(29:31):
to bring in you know, other people and things like that. Yeah.
So I was like, Okay, since I'm not black, I
also can't say anything on this, can't make any claims.
But um, you know, I did think it was really
important that can you know, wasn't like dismissing dismissing certain ideas,
just saying that there wasn't context and there wasn't enough
behind it, and a lot of people were like me,
(29:53):
where we we're thankful for Kent's peace? Right? Yeah, it
was really well all written and well thought out and
kind of going off what you were saying a lot
of the things. She she kind of pointed out it
was more I'm not saying this is wrong, it just
wasn't well argued. It wasn't. It didn't have the stuff
(30:16):
to back it up. Um, which is good, very thoughtful.
She's a term parenting. The niche author did a lot
of parenting, and I was like, okay, yeah, and speaking
of the initial author, that about brings us to talk
about that. But first we're gonna stop for one more
quick break for a word from our sponsor. M hm,
(30:44):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor. So could you tell
us a little bit about the author of this the
original piece? Yes, okay, So, as I said it before,
you cannot find the original article. Um. And as I
said before, the author's name Actually I didn't say this,
but the author's name was initially first removed from the
(31:04):
article and then the article itself came down. Okay, So
as the original think piece, like you know, it wasn't harmful,
but it was poorly poorly done, or you could say
it was harmful, you know. Um, there's another layer to it.
Here's the trajectory to the original think piece and why
the entire fiasco has ended the way it has, and
not just as far as rebuttle, but there's there's more
(31:26):
to it. And this is also why I didn't want
to use the author's name. Um. When the article was
first published, the editor in chief not only apologize amid
the backlash, but also removed the author's name due to
a number of death threats. Yeah, and and just because
you know, you don't have to agree with someone at all,
but death threats are definitely not the way to go.
(31:48):
So yeah, I just think that makes things worse, you know,
just as a side note, and also just don't be
that mean. Yeah, Like I had to go on a
whole Pete Davidson things earlier and is related to this,
And I'm just a big proponent of trying to be
constructive criticism or generally nice or don't say anything at all.
(32:08):
Yeah you can just you know, there's there's lots going on.
You don't have to um. However, into his editor in
chief also said the publication was doing an internal investigation
to the author. Allegations had arisen amongst the controversy that
Into was not originally aware of, and neither was I
until this happened. As of December seventh last year, the
(32:30):
publication removed all content the author had written for the
site and severed ties with her. Turns out the transone
who wrote the initial I think Peace is an alleged rapist.
I was just shocked. I was seeing it in the comments,
and I thought, I mean that the death threats maybe
were that people didn't like what she initially said, but
maybe it was also that. But then when I read
(32:51):
what Into had to say, and then I read that
not only had they removed the author's name but all
of her stuff, and then they've completely severed tires, I
was like, oh my goodness. Now the author still has
they've written for like Or she's written for helf Post
and Glamour and and those sites. They still have her
work up, but it's just specifically this one. But I
have been following this one for a while now, both
(33:12):
on Instagram, as I said, and reading other pieces she's
done for publications. It was I had a really really
hard time with this, not just checking myself like did
I completely miss it, but also finding out about the
author because it's like this is someone as someone who's
trying to educate myself, this is someone I looked up to,
like Okay, you know, they're being an advocacy. They know
(33:32):
what they're talking about, and why might I might not
always um agree with with certain points, Like I really
was learning a lot from them, and now to find
out they are an alleged rapist, I was like, I mean,
what do you do? What do you do with that?
To some extent, right, like I I was just and
and after this happened, they weren't on Instagram for a while,
their Twitter got shut down for a minute, Like I mean,
(33:53):
they just they got off social media for a second,
which I can understand. But I've you know, I've read
other states like so I've read the statements on the incident.
I've read her accuser statements, um her statements, and other
people have chimed in. I mean, it's if you want
to know, like it's out there, like the both the
accuser and in the alleged rapists, like they have put
(34:14):
their stuff out there on social media. So you can
find it. And I remember kind of going down this
hole and then being like I gotta, I gotta come back.
It was just a lot. But I don't think this
is necessarily place to break down what happened, but I
will say it did make me think a bit harder
about well, one, the idea of being too woke because
of the article itself, like just because this is someone
I followed and like trusted, and like you still have
to you still have to check in with yourself, like
(34:36):
is this does this sound realistic? Like can you can
you back it up to other things? Or is this
like kind of completely off the rails, which this was
her piece was a bit yeah. I mean it was
a total reach and it just did not fit in.
And that kind of goes into the idea of being
too woke, which is why I liked Kent's piece and
that that was a title because it's like someone who's
trying so hard when you're just completely missing the point.
I mean, we have to be conscious of that. But
(34:58):
also it really made me think about like Aaron, who
am I getting my information from? You know, and I know,
like this isn't the case with everyone, and like this
is like This is very sad that this is a thing. Um,
this sucks, but it's you know, it's not only like
we're all trying to find like figure out lanes, being
a better alley, like learning about what's going on, being
more socially aware. But at the same time, like some
(35:20):
of those people in in some of those places, like
it doesn't necessarily mean those are the right people or
the places to look. And so like with like news media,
they you know, they teach you how to be media literate,
Like if you're gonna watch Fox, watch CNN, even though
CNN is technically not the CNN is more moderate. Um,
it's actually I think in miss and BC. Yeah yeah, um,
but I'm learning it's the same even with like pop
(35:41):
culture and like cultural culture media as well. Like you
you know, you do need to kind of have a
few different outlets and check and do your research and know. Um,
I for one have decided I've had to set this
person aside. I can't. I don't think I can look
toward them anymore. I mean, I'm not saying the things
that they have said is wrong, but like just because
of allegation and so I was just that's a lot
and I know there are other places I can go
(36:02):
find my information, but it was really kind of a
big shock, Like I had had a hard time for
a couple of days about this overall, just the whole
everything that happened between the two articles and then everything
that happened about the author. Yeah, that was a difficult one. Yeah,
we've we've talked about it before on this show, but
it's it feels like a personal betrayal when someone you
(36:23):
looked up to right or wrong. It feels like a
personal betrayal. Um, when somebody looked up to turns out
to not be someone you should have been looking up to,
or even maybe it just makes you feel so uncertain
about the things that you learned from them or that
have become a part of you. And I and I
think this is a sad state affairs to be in.
(36:44):
But I am now I live in fear, like I
don't like anybody. I'm always ready for the other shoe
to drop. I'm like, oh god, oh my god, especially
in the media. But it is good to to check
in with yourself, like you said, and to make sure
you know where you're getting your information from and when
you're forming your opinions. It's good too to take to
(37:11):
take what you learned from other people and to make
sure that it's tracking with you and if it's not,
why is it? And then maybe you're wrong or maybe
the other person's wrong, or maybe no one's wrong. It's
just different experiences. Yeah, yeah, but it definitely was. It
was a big check for me. So it just it
got me to thinking about all of these things. So
I was just like, okay, so and then I went
(37:33):
down the rest of the Ariana Grande hole with all
the other time Grande making us think, making as think, well,
I think this has been so I feel like you
could teach a class on Ariana Grande, which is fantastic.
(37:55):
We dont have like a sminty like this course, Like hey, George,
just stay, hey, you wanna bring me in for lessone?
I got this? Hey, I mean maybe they should. Thanks
so much for joining us, Veranda. Where can people find you?
So you can find me on Twitter? I met Knox
kN o X Underscore Hawkins and then you can also
find me on Instagram at mur made. It's probably the
(38:18):
most clever thing I've ever done in my life. But
it's m I R R R underscore m A d Yeah,
very clever. And also I'm sure we'll be hearing from
you any other are on a Grande news um and
other things. I won't put you in a box. And
in the meantime, listeners that you can always email us.
(38:40):
Our email is mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast
and on Instagram at stuff mom Never told You. Thanks
as always to our producer Andrew Howard, and thanks to
you for listening. S
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to Stefan Never
told you. Today we are once again joined by guest
co host Miranda. Thanks for joining as Miranda, I'm glad
(00:27):
to be back. Yeah. You might recognize Miranda from our
episode All Around Consent and No meaning no the first time.
But when we were first talking about ideas that you
were interested in doing, you pitched an episode about Ariana
grand Day and you said we need to do it
soon because it's timely. And I, as I've said on
(00:51):
the show before, I don't know much about Ariana Grande.
She has come up on this show a lot um,
so I was like, timely, Okay, we better get on it. Yeah,
as I mentioned before, I'm pretty much out of the
loop when it comes already on a grand date. But
my phone is determined to fix that. I swear every
(01:11):
day I get an update, a news update, Ariana Grande
does this. Yeah, she's been she's been all up in
the news lately. Yeah it seems so. It seems so.
But to you, this is one of the reasons you're
here because you have you have a pretty decent amount
of Ariana Grandie knowledge. At this point, I'm like stuffed
to the brim. You know so much about her and
(01:34):
I'm not, and I'm just like, okay, how did we
get here? But we're here, we are here, and we're
not just talking about like Ariana grand Day. We're going
to touch on other things, right, Yes, yes, definitely. There
was some controversy about her thank You Next video that
I wanted to talk about because it had a big
impact on me, which is why I was so vocal
(01:55):
about wanting to talk about Ariana Grande. Right, well, I
love it. UM. Always down to learn more about pop culture,
and one of the things that we're going to be
talking about that this controversy specifically is wokeness. Yes, so
we thought we would. As always, it's good to start
(02:15):
with the definition, um and actually finding a definition is
hard to find, and I think after we go into
some of the history that will become clear. Why. But
from Urban Dictionary quote, being woke means being aware, knowing
what's going on in the community, and it started as
a term used primarily among the black activist community on
(02:37):
social media. Nowadays, it has been largely appropriated by white
mainstream internet culture, and it is often used as a
joke or to poke fun at wokeness. It has fractured
into multiple meanings, and a lot of them conflict directly
with each other. Yes, you see it a lot on
Twitter and you know Facebook and lots of social media. Yeah. Absolutely,
(03:01):
um and so like a quick rundown quick history. The
generally accepted first usage of woke with this definition came
from a song from two thousand eight called a Master
Teacher by Erica Badou, and it also had Bilal and
Georgia and Muldrow basically seeing about a future where she
dreams of very kind of a much better future, but
(03:25):
knows that it will probably never happen. And at the
time there was a lot of confusion around what she
meant by woke. You can go back on the Internet
and there's all this like Yahoo answers, what did it mean?
Trying to dissect to get to the bottom of it,
especially among white people, confusion. Uh. Two years later, in
two ten, you might have seen stay woke on Twitter,
(03:46):
but generally it referred to actually trying to stay away
were sired. By twenty eleven, people had a more nuanced
understanding of the line I stay woke from Master Teacher.
Again Yahoo answers, you can find it it's kind of
funny now. And with the death of Trayvon Martin and
(04:07):
his killer Andrew Zimmerman found not guilty and the Russian
rock group Pussy Riot being threatened with jail time for
their queer sexual protest performance, Eric Kabadu came out in
solidary with the band on Twitter with this tweet truth
requires no belief, Stay awoke. Watch closely hashtag free Pussy Riot,
And that's kind of when stay awoke in the since
(04:29):
we use it now started to become more common on
social media, especially when expressing outrage around Andrew Zimmerman's lack
of punishment or other things like that. Because unfortunately there
are a lot of things um around. We see the
meming and co opting of stay woke. It was applied
to all sorts of things, and worth noting the hashtag
(04:52):
black Lives Matter, which was often a counterpart or used
at the same time with the hashtags they woke, was
not widely adopted it and instead around this time is
when we start to see the rise of all lives
matter that hashtag. BuzzFeed helped popularize woke in twenty with
the article can we talk about how woke? Matt mcgory
(05:13):
was in discussing the sympathy of the white heterosist actor
on the TV show How to Get Away with Murder
towards the gender and racial inequality, and then h MTV
in sixteen labeled woke on freak in teenage slaying Yes,
(05:33):
Oh goodness indeed. And then soon after stay woke became
sort of a joke on Twitter. People would use it,
I don't know for for pretty much anything like my
my leggings don't fit. Stay woke like anything. Yeah, And
then from there its usage really fractured, and it's a
way to criticize typically white people who think they are
(05:56):
woke are to make fun of the idea of wokeness altogether.
But a sort of tragic that this thing that was
really part of the black activist social community got appropriated
and now it's really deluded and also just means directly
conflicting things. Yeah. And and also it's like, you know,
trying to be more aware. Like at first I was like, hey,
(06:18):
this is like the specific what it means trying to
be more aware, and like, I mean, as as time
has gone on, especially since the presidency, um, you know,
people are trying to be more aware. Um, So it's like,
how now do you define that in in what space?
You know? Without using where It's like this, right, um,
and I a couple of years ago, I was covering
(06:39):
afro Punk, which, if you don't know what that is,
it's a music festival that celebrates all things blackness and
also has these panels about activism and social issues. And
you can hear Bridget on Afropunk Solution Sessions that podcast.
And one of the things that came up a lot
when we were doing personal on the street interviews are
just interviewing random people who walked by. Was this in
(07:00):
noyance at how the term woke was used, and most
people I spoke with um said that you are never woke.
A lot of people they expressed this thing where it's
like something you always strive for, but since we're all human,
we all have so much to learn, you were never
truly woke. You're always kind of working towards it, and
that's what woke is. If that makes sense. I actually
(07:23):
think that makes more sense because I know someone who's
trying to be better. You know, I'm never going to
be there, and if you ever think you're there, you're
most likely not exactly exactly. So that's kind of a
brief history of the term, and it relates to a
right on a grand day. I've told so many people
(07:45):
doing this and they're like, what do you mean. I'm like,
you'll see, but yeah, yeah, it totally makes sense that
and we're gonna I mean, it's about Ariana Grande. It
is about Ariana Grande, but it's about a think piece
that was done on her thinking next video. But it
encompasses this idea of being woke but also being too woke.
Quotation marks right. And one of the reasons you wanted
(08:11):
to do this, if I recall, because the music video
you went on a bit of a tangent. Yeah. Yeah,
So I don't know if you've seen the music video.
Have you watched it yet? Okay, no, all right, it's okay. So,
I um, I really like music videos in general. I
will like spend a night at home watching music videos
(08:32):
drinking wine. I just it's something I enjoyed doing, even
if I don't like the artist of it. If the
you know, music videos entertaining, I'm like, okay, cool. So
I went on an arian A Grande kick. I've never
really listened to her music It's not that I don't
know she's talented, but I'm more of a Selena Gomez
kind of person, and I think you're normally one or
the other. Yeah, that sends to be how I've seen
it separate. Um so I'm more Selena Gomez as far
(08:56):
as like you know her music, but um, arian A Grande. Anyways,
I went down an arian Grande music video hole and
to the point where I even like, did a little
video trying to mimic something she was doing. Totally failed.
The baby gate fell on me, but it was it
was totally fine. I got to see it. It It was
pretty epic. Um. Yeah, So I had just had just
(09:17):
gotten into her because of the music videos, and then
this music video came out, and then this think piece
came out and it was this huge controversy blow up,
and I just I got lost in a lot of fields,
being very unsure of what was going on, which is
why initially brought this up. But before we get too
far into that, I do want to be clear. I
know that there's a lot going on with Ariana Grande
right now, between her Seven Rings music video and taking
(09:40):
things from other artists, there's a lot of appropriation between that,
the music video Seven Rings itself, her black sense being
called out for that. People are saying she's doing digital
black face. To talk about a bit more about later,
and then also heard tattoo fiasco where she tried to
get seven rings in Japanese on her hand and if
(10:02):
you take the characters separately, it does say once as
seven once. It's like rings and stuff, but the way
that she put them together it's a like small charcoal grill,
a small charcoal grills. And then she tried to fix
it and then it said like small charcoal grill in
the finger or something. I'm not seven fingers, which closer
(10:26):
I mean you need seven fingers if you're gonna wear
seven rings. Well, no you don't at all. I don't
wear much jewelry. I don't need It's okay. And then
she's also getting sued right now to for another music video,
her God is a Woman music video supposedly um Are
allegedly she it's like a federal copyright infringement. There's a
(10:47):
scene in the video where this artist is saying that
it's like almost exactly like something he painted that was
copyrighted back in so she's just kind of getting hit
left and right, um with appropriating culture and things not
being her own, and yeah, she's not doing so hot
and yet and all my phone wants to alert me
(11:10):
about she's gotten really popular out of late. But yes,
but we're gonna talk about thank You next. So I know,
as you said, you hadn't seen it, but thank You
next as an homage to nineties pop culture. Mean Girls
bring it on legally Blonde, and there's even a little
bit of thirteen going on thirty. It was very like short, short,
little clips. Took me a second, but I was like, oh, yeah,
(11:30):
that's what's going on. Everyone was very excited when they're
excited about the song because she's basically saying thank you
to all my exes and she calls him by name
and all the things she learned from them, but you know,
moving on, and she and her now ex fiance recently
split last year. Yeah last year. Yeah, Pete Davidson, and
he's even included in that, but she says her actual name.
But it's supposed to be like this heartfelt, uplifting song.
(11:54):
But everyone was super stoked because of the Mean Girls
mainly that was like the main theme through all of it.
And then the other stuff was like interspersed. But it
was really great because they even like pulled like some
of the original like actors and actresses from these movies,
and they had like a whole bunch of cameos and
I don't know, it was a lot of fun. And
if you grew up and you watched those and you
love those movies, like you're like, oh my god, this
(12:16):
is amazing. Um. Yeah, so I remember watching it being like,
this is great. Didn't really love the song offense, but
I love the music video. Yeah, it's really funny, because
I mean, it's not funny. I suppose I haven't seen
any of those movies, not a single one, so I
probably would have watched it and been like, whoa, something's
happening here. Though I am not picking up. I would
(12:36):
recognize me and girls. Ye um. But I remember when
that music video first came out. It was around the
time that the Avengers trailer came out, and people were
I did I had to look it up because everybody
on Twitter was doing like the first one taught me this,
the second one taught me this, But and I had
(12:58):
no idea what was happening. I did not know that happened.
It did, and I was very confused, Uh, but I
figured it out. I think proud of thank you. But
this just about brings us to the controversy that we're
going to talk about. But first it brings us to
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
(13:29):
we're back, thank you sponsor. So Miranda tell us about
this controversy. Okay. So I follow a trans woman on
Instagram and she is huge in the advocacy world. Um.
She does a lot of tours and does a lot
of speeches, but she also writes for a lot of publications,
(13:49):
including the LGBTQ publication into the online one. So I
ran across an article, um about this music video that
she did, and it was a think piece titled Ariana
Grandes thank You. Next music video is surprisingly anti queer.
Now we're not going to say the author's name, and
it will explain why later. Um. And also that original
(14:12):
article has also been taken down, which we'll talk about
a little later. But I want to go into the
article or the think piece itself first. It really threw
me off when I ran across this piece because as
someone who's constantly trying to learn and be a better
Alley and like just be more conscious of, like, you know,
everything around me. When I saw that and read the
(14:33):
article compared to what I had seen, I was like,
did I completely missed the point? And it really made
me check myself. I was like, am I Like it
really threw me through loop? I was like, am I
so blind? Like that I didn't catch any of this?
Um it turns out that's not the case, but we'll
get into what this author was saying from this music video.
(14:57):
It was a lot yeah, and it and it really
had you know, me thinking. So when the author said
anti queer, one of the things that there's actually a
few different examples, but one of them is queer antagonism.
If you don't know about the newer artist whose name
is Tris Van, he's openly gay. He's really popular for
(15:18):
a song bloom Um, does a few other things. But yeah,
he's really great. He's awesome And so Ariana and Ariana
and him have done a couple of music videos together.
So he was in this one and there's a scene
where she pushes him into the locker and like just
like what walks by and just shoved him to the
locker and he's just like, has this look on his face,
and the author interpreted this as saying that queer people
(15:41):
are glad to be disrespected by someone like Arianna because
it means they're getting attention, even if it's negative attention.
She also had queer phobia, and there at the beginning,
there's another scene where Troy is when he says, like,
Arianna is a lesbian now and dating some chick called Aubrey.
It's making sick, And the author says this is meant
(16:01):
to be in a derisive way, and she even says,
like in the article itself, she said, Arianna is so
offended at the very thought of having a woman as
a lover. She even addressed it at the very beginning
of her music video, and then later on in the
music video there's like so much in like four minutes,
I don't even know. But later in the music video
(16:23):
there's another scene that's interpreted that the author interprets as
anti lesbian or Jennifer Coolidge. Okay, now we're moving on
to legally blonde by the way. Okay, so Jennifer Coolidge.
They're in the beauty parlor and she asked, Arianna, have
you ever gone out with someone that had no teeth?
At all, And the author argues that Arianna smirks while
saying no, and that this is meant to insinuate their
(16:43):
talking about penises, and like it's supposed to be like
white feminism, like supporting her, like heteronormative like ways very strange.
I've never heard anyone referenced teeth with penis, but I
was like, okay, um yeah. And and so the author
also you know, interprets as a scene makes fun like
queer woman the butt of the joke. Um. And then
(17:04):
also in that same scene, a little later on, they
do a bendon snap, you know, the bend snap. Okay,
so they do their own little thing to it. And
supposedly in this like not even a minute long, the
author says, like queer people of color are used as
props here um. And she asserts that at the beginning
(17:25):
of the scene, you see like what looks like queer
game in um. And then that when they get into
the bendon snap part of the beauty polar scene, that
they disappear and that supposedly only leaves presumably straight women
to dance. Now it's not just anti queer, but the
author also says there's trans misogyny in this music video
(17:45):
UM with about seventeen sixteen seventeen seconds and one of
Arianna's backup dancers, Scott Nicholson. He's dressed in a week
and appears to be portraying a trans woman and he's
like talking about Arianda as is she's Regina George from
like Mean Girls, Like oh my goodness, you know. It's
a very short, very quick over in a couple of seconds.
And then at the very end of the music video,
christ Jenner, who's supposed to be Regina George's mom, she
(18:09):
she stumbles out of like uh like there at their
daughters are at the Mean Girl scene of UM and
the auditorium and she stumbles out of the seats and
with like her video camera and she's like thank you.
Next bit and it's like hilarious but anyways, UM, But
the author says that this is supposed to be a
dig at Caitlyn Jenner Chris's X. And then the last
thing that I want to touch on is black face.
(18:31):
So at forty seven seconds, and there's a scene of
Ariana writing in her burned book. She definitely has a
very dark tan. She's much darker than usual. UM. The
author accuses ariana black face throughout the video, noting are
you on a skin? Varies in shade seen to scene
in a horrifying transformation, highlighting how little she cares about
communities of color. Now, again, as I said at the beginning,
(18:52):
as someone who's been working trying to educate myself, I
was super thrown off because, like some of the things
the author was saying, I was like, okay, some of
it was just I was like, I don't see that, Like,
am I missing it? So it really I don't know.
It made me check myself and I got really uncomfortable
with it. But like I said, it turns out I
did not miss the point. Uh. So I started kind
(19:14):
of following the trend, like reading the comments, reading everything
that was happening, and people were furious. They're like, I
have never seen someone reach like that. The term was
reached so far, people like as a satires was supposed
to be real, like how did you print this? Very
confused and upset. They were just like no, this is
this is like such a reach. And it made me
feel better. I was like, okay, so I you know,
(19:36):
I'm not completely off the beaten path here. I was like,
all right, but even like Roreus Vaughn tweeted about it,
saying this literally can't be real. I'm scream I'm not
sure what he meant by I'm screamed, but okay. UM.
Tatiana RuPaul's drag Race tweeted saying, I'm sorry, but this
is the farthest reaching article I've read in my whole
entire life. So it was not Yeah, it was. It
(19:59):
was not well received. Um. There was actually so much
blowback the editor and she responded personally by apologizing for
even letting this piece like make it online, um, and
then saying that they're going to they're releasing another think
piece in response to this think piece. Okay, now the
follow up think piece. Sorry if this gets confusing. The
(20:21):
thin piece. The thin piece, UM was written by Clarksha
Kent and it's titled there is such thing as two
Woke overbuttled to that ariana think piece, and I really
appreciated the title itself. That she has said that it
was too woke. She doesn't say that the arguments are wrong,
but she does basically like she puts things into context.
(20:42):
Some of the things she did were like that was
just way out in left field, but Kent's peace focus
is mainly on proving that the first article was a
huge miss because of lack of context and evidence. She
does say, though, that the supposed dig at Caitlin nerds,
she does say it's quite libelous and points out that
(21:02):
that was Ariana's idea. So that was you know, because
like everyone was like, how is this at all like
to your ex Okay, so we're gonna go back through
some of the points I initially said and say what
this author said in response to them. So as far
as it being anti queer, the interaction again where Sevan
gets shoved into a locker, I can't argue that the
(21:25):
first author's assertation that queer people at large are glad
to be disrespected and again in quotation Marks, is bold
and couldn't be farther from the truth. She points out
the obvious most of us don't find it enjoyable to
be disrespected. Are very much don't enjoy it in fact. Yeah,
and like even if it's like from someone who I
(21:46):
don't know, I look up to or whatever, I still know, yeah,
that would make me not want to look up to that. Um.
But she also says what most of us are thinking
is like, how does that? How does one then take
that microcoseum of a scene and apply it to every
queer person ever? And it's like two seconds and it's
(22:06):
like it's supposed to be everybody, And I was like,
I don't think that's yeah. Yeah. As for the previous
author saying Savan's sit comment is devisive, can't argue the
author doesn't fully understand how slang works, which is yeah,
I mean I think at some point most of us
has used sick as like something being cool. Yeah, I
(22:29):
know I've used it personally, right, our producer definitely. Um
And Plus later on the song, if you listen to
it fully, Arianne elaborates that she's in a relationship with
Ari a k A herself. So the author like kn't
doesn't say this, But as far as I'm concerned, like
kind of inserting myself a little bit here, I took
(22:50):
it as like it's supposed to be a joke, like
he said it wrong, like like she's in a relationship
with lesbian like all every but it's like, no, she's
in a relationship with herself ari you know. So I
was like, Okay, the whole teeth thing to imply that
she's making fun of people who have no penises. Kent
says that this is combative reading, like the way that
the original author read into it was just so off
the map. And again, I've never heard anyone use teeth
(23:12):
as far as I'm playing penises. So I was like, okay, uh, yeah,
it's a little strange because normally is that a horror
movie where vagina has teeth? But no other is it?
So the vagina? Yeah? Fun side note. That was one
(23:34):
of the first episodes I pitched when I came on
as a host, and I have the outlined ready to go,
but no one wants to talk about it with me.
We can just insert it any here, like let's just
do a little side note. Just thinks a turn. It's
like a podcast within a podcast. I thought you were
listening to an episode about Ariana Grande, but this is
(23:57):
how we bring you in. Ask for using queer people
of color as props. You don't actually have to read
what Kent says to this um, but it is demonstrably false.
If you actually watch the music video, you can see
this is not true. The same visibly queer people who
were there at the beginning of the beauty salon scene
are there for the bandon snaps scene, but Kent does
(24:21):
go on to break down the previous author sentence. The
queer men disappear from the beauty parlor only leaving presumably
straight women to dance. Kent says she was grateful that
presumably was used here because it shows how presumptuous the
author is can't assert. This s line implies queer women
are of no importance and that all women in the
scene are straight, which I hope we all know by
(24:42):
now that you can't tell a person's sexual orientation by
the way they look. So yeah, the the initial author
of the first think piece was definitely kind of leading,
and that was very very off. But again, if you
actually watched music video, very wrong there. I have gone
back and re watches music video multiple times, not only
for the research but also just like checking sure. I
(25:05):
hope that all the people listening to this, like do
you watch just have this and you know, press play
dissect the scene this like I think that could be fun,
but I have a I'm a very big nerd making
a drinking game. I don't know now that okay, okay,
um yeah, And then moving on into the trans misogyny. Um.
(25:29):
As we already talked about earlier, the whole Christian are
yelling thank you, next bitch was actually Arianna's idea. Um,
there's nothing to suggest or link it back to Chris's
ex Caitlin As for the backup dancer addressed as a
woman can't write. She initially read this as Nicholson's character
aiming to be just like Arianna, because again, Arianna is
supposed to be playing Regina George right who if you
(25:50):
watch Me and Girls, everyone wants to be Regina George
and like just is like, oh, just being in her presence? Um,
but she does. Kent does follow up by adding, after
rewatching the video, she isn't sure because she is not
a trans woman, so she would be out of her
lane to dissect this. Um. Kent isn't saying the point
is wrong, but that it suffers from lack of elaboration
and exploration. In considering I'm not a trans woman either,
(26:14):
I also cannot make a claim on it. Um. I
did have the same initial thought that Kent did. Um,
But again I don't know, so I can't say anything
on that either. But I do agree with Kent those
as far as like it does suffer from a little
bit of lack of elaboration and exploration. It was initially
tossed in the original article, right, Yeah, a lot of
this stuff from reading this Kent's peace, it sounds like
(26:38):
context was missing. A lot of context, And Kent does
make a point. I mean we're talking about like some
of the biggest issues, but there's she does bring up
like the context of the videos and like the initial
movies themselves, like that the initial author maybe didn't understand
where like the homage was like coming from, like the
(26:58):
movies themselves, Like I mean, they were the nineties there
white white movies. Other than Bring it On. There's like
no lead black or brown person in them anywhere, really, right, Yeah,
I feel like I haven't seen Bring it On, but
I feel like I've read a lot of critiques that
it is not a good portrayal. No no, no black people.
So yeah, yeah, it sounds like a lot of that
(27:21):
was missing. It was definitely And then coming down to
the black face you know, again, Kent doesn't say the
original authors point of our and is oddly darker skin
tone as black faces. Wrong. She said it flops because
the author who isn't black by the way, doesn't have
the range to argue back her point or to argue
or back up her point. Um knt write. This is
(27:41):
aggravated by the fact that there's no comparative analysis done
between Grande and other white women in pop music, So
you know, she's just like, oh, she's just doing this
black face and leaves it at that. UM can't use
as a more recently named phenomenon of digital black face
to to support her arguments. So were Michelle Jackson did
an article for teen Vogue, and she defined digital black
(28:04):
face as inhabiting black persona using technology to co op
a perceived cache or black cool. Basically, it's white people like. Okay,
so I say g I F because I refused to
get into the argument of gifts or jifts, So I
just d our jives. Okay, we'll go with jives. I
have not heard that one. It is from a PBS
idea channel now defunct YouTube series, but I used to
(28:26):
like it quite a bit. Okay, we'll jive for a life. Okay,
we'll do GIF. I just say g IF because I'm
just not going to do this. I thought it was
like an acronym. I was getting ready to learn really yeah. No,
so yeah, it's yeah, gifts or gifts whatever your preferences. Um,
but basically how we use them to express ourselves on
(28:48):
the internet. Um, but how a lot of us, especially
white people, use mainly women of color to express ourselves,
like when we use g if our gifts, jifts, whatever. Um.
And so it is a term of like it's digital
black face, like it's She wasn't saying that you can't
use them, but like you need to be conscious, like
because like that's what's being put out there, and like
(29:09):
it basically it's another form of appropriation. Yeah. So um.
And in this case though, Kent also says that the
way the Ariana is using it, um, how some people
use it in like Instagram and stuff, is using blackness
as being exotic, right yeah, or that whole ethnicallygus, ethnically ambiguous, Yeah,
(29:31):
to bring in you know, other people and things like that. Yeah.
So I was like, Okay, since I'm not black, I
also can't say anything on this, can't make any claims.
But um, you know, I did think it was really
important that can you know, wasn't like dismissing dismissing certain ideas,
just saying that there wasn't context and there wasn't enough
behind it, and a lot of people were like me,
(29:53):
where we we're thankful for Kent's peace? Right? Yeah, it
was really well all written and well thought out and
kind of going off what you were saying a lot
of the things. She she kind of pointed out it
was more I'm not saying this is wrong, it just
wasn't well argued. It wasn't. It didn't have the stuff
(30:16):
to back it up. Um, which is good, very thoughtful.
She's a term parenting. The niche author did a lot
of parenting, and I was like, okay, yeah, and speaking
of the initial author, that about brings us to talk
about that. But first we're gonna stop for one more
quick break for a word from our sponsor. M hm,
(30:44):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor. So could you tell
us a little bit about the author of this the
original piece? Yes, okay, So, as I said it before,
you cannot find the original article. Um. And as I
said before, the author's name Actually I didn't say this,
but the author's name was initially first removed from the
(31:04):
article and then the article itself came down. Okay, So
as the original think piece, like you know, it wasn't harmful,
but it was poorly poorly done, or you could say
it was harmful, you know. Um, there's another layer to it.
Here's the trajectory to the original think piece and why
the entire fiasco has ended the way it has, and
not just as far as rebuttle, but there's there's more
(31:26):
to it. And this is also why I didn't want
to use the author's name. Um. When the article was
first published, the editor in chief not only apologize amid
the backlash, but also removed the author's name due to
a number of death threats. Yeah, and and just because
you know, you don't have to agree with someone at all,
but death threats are definitely not the way to go.
(31:48):
So yeah, I just think that makes things worse, you know,
just as a side note, and also just don't be
that mean. Yeah, Like I had to go on a
whole Pete Davidson things earlier and is related to this,
And I'm just a big proponent of trying to be
constructive criticism or generally nice or don't say anything at all.
(32:08):
Yeah you can just you know, there's there's lots going on.
You don't have to um. However, into his editor in
chief also said the publication was doing an internal investigation
to the author. Allegations had arisen amongst the controversy that
Into was not originally aware of, and neither was I
until this happened. As of December seventh last year, the
(32:30):
publication removed all content the author had written for the
site and severed ties with her. Turns out the transone
who wrote the initial I think Peace is an alleged rapist.
I was just shocked. I was seeing it in the comments,
and I thought, I mean that the death threats maybe
were that people didn't like what she initially said, but
maybe it was also that. But then when I read
(32:51):
what Into had to say, and then I read that
not only had they removed the author's name but all
of her stuff, and then they've completely severed tires, I
was like, oh my goodness. Now the author still has
they've written for like Or she's written for helf Post
and Glamour and and those sites. They still have her
work up, but it's just specifically this one. But I
have been following this one for a while now, both
(33:12):
on Instagram, as I said, and reading other pieces she's
done for publications. It was I had a really really
hard time with this, not just checking myself like did
I completely miss it, but also finding out about the
author because it's like this is someone as someone who's
trying to educate myself, this is someone I looked up to,
like Okay, you know, they're being an advocacy. They know
(33:32):
what they're talking about, and why might I might not
always um agree with with certain points, Like I really
was learning a lot from them, and now to find
out they are an alleged rapist, I was like, I mean,
what do you do? What do you do with that?
To some extent, right, like I I was just and
and after this happened, they weren't on Instagram for a while,
their Twitter got shut down for a minute, Like I mean,
(33:53):
they just they got off social media for a second,
which I can understand. But I've you know, I've read
other states like so I've read the statements on the incident.
I've read her accuser statements, um her statements, and other
people have chimed in. I mean, it's if you want
to know, like it's out there, like the both the
accuser and in the alleged rapists, like they have put
(34:14):
their stuff out there on social media. So you can
find it. And I remember kind of going down this
hole and then being like I gotta, I gotta come back.
It was just a lot. But I don't think this
is necessarily place to break down what happened, but I
will say it did make me think a bit harder
about well, one, the idea of being too woke because
of the article itself, like just because this is someone
I followed and like trusted, and like you still have
to you still have to check in with yourself, like
(34:36):
is this does this sound realistic? Like can you can
you back it up to other things? Or is this
like kind of completely off the rails, which this was
her piece was a bit yeah. I mean it was
a total reach and it just did not fit in.
And that kind of goes into the idea of being
too woke, which is why I liked Kent's piece and
that that was a title because it's like someone who's
trying so hard when you're just completely missing the point.
I mean, we have to be conscious of that. But
(34:58):
also it really made me think about like Aaron, who
am I getting my information from? You know, and I know,
like this isn't the case with everyone, and like this
is like This is very sad that this is a thing. Um,
this sucks, but it's you know, it's not only like
we're all trying to find like figure out lanes, being
a better alley, like learning about what's going on, being
more socially aware. But at the same time, like some
(35:20):
of those people in in some of those places, like
it doesn't necessarily mean those are the right people or
the places to look. And so like with like news media,
they you know, they teach you how to be media literate,
Like if you're gonna watch Fox, watch CNN, even though
CNN is technically not the CNN is more moderate. Um,
it's actually I think in miss and BC. Yeah yeah, um,
but I'm learning it's the same even with like pop
(35:41):
culture and like cultural culture media as well. Like you
you know, you do need to kind of have a
few different outlets and check and do your research and know. Um,
I for one have decided I've had to set this
person aside. I can't. I don't think I can look
toward them anymore. I mean, I'm not saying the things
that they have said is wrong, but like just because
of allegation and so I was just that's a lot
and I know there are other places I can go
(36:02):
find my information, but it was really kind of a
big shock, Like I had had a hard time for
a couple of days about this overall, just the whole
everything that happened between the two articles and then everything
that happened about the author. Yeah, that was a difficult one. Yeah,
we've we've talked about it before on this show, but
it's it feels like a personal betrayal when someone you
(36:23):
looked up to right or wrong. It feels like a
personal betrayal. Um, when somebody looked up to turns out
to not be someone you should have been looking up to,
or even maybe it just makes you feel so uncertain
about the things that you learned from them or that
have become a part of you. And I and I
think this is a sad state affairs to be in.
(36:44):
But I am now I live in fear, like I
don't like anybody. I'm always ready for the other shoe
to drop. I'm like, oh god, oh my god, especially
in the media. But it is good to to check
in with yourself, like you said, and to make sure
you know where you're getting your information from and when
you're forming your opinions. It's good too to take to
(37:11):
take what you learned from other people and to make
sure that it's tracking with you and if it's not,
why is it? And then maybe you're wrong or maybe
the other person's wrong, or maybe no one's wrong. It's
just different experiences. Yeah, yeah, but it definitely was. It
was a big check for me. So it just it
got me to thinking about all of these things. So
I was just like, okay, so and then I went
(37:33):
down the rest of the Ariana Grande hole with all
the other time Grande making us think, making as think, well,
I think this has been so I feel like you
could teach a class on Ariana Grande, which is fantastic.
(37:55):
We dont have like a sminty like this course, Like hey, George,
just stay, hey, you wanna bring me in for lessone?
I got this? Hey, I mean maybe they should. Thanks
so much for joining us, Veranda. Where can people find you?
So you can find me on Twitter? I met Knox
kN o X Underscore Hawkins and then you can also
find me on Instagram at mur made. It's probably the
(38:18):
most clever thing I've ever done in my life. But
it's m I R R R underscore m A d Yeah,
very clever. And also I'm sure we'll be hearing from
you any other are on a Grande news um and
other things. I won't put you in a box. And
in the meantime, listeners that you can always email us.
(38:40):
Our email is mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast
and on Instagram at stuff mom Never told You. Thanks
as always to our producer Andrew Howard, and thanks to
you for listening. S
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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Anney Reese
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