Society’s relentless cycle of internet starlets and icons has been ingrained in the music industry for years. Someone new and shiny comes along with something important and is immediately compared to the woman who came before them in the spotlight. The kind of comparison that includes, “You’re like ____, but with less entitlement!” “You’re like the next ___, but way more talented!” It’s as if tearing down the bricks of a past legacy and building a new tower is somehow the “highest compliment.”
Competition in the industry has become a staple in modern times and is often forced on two women who are equally good and talented at their craft. Women like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift are pitted against each other in a merciless competition, instilling in young people the belief that there is only room for one successful woman in the music industry. Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber are constantly criticized and called mean girls because their so-called ‘feud’, which viewers and media simply made up based on insufficient evidence, does not hold water. It is almost a sin for a woman in the music industry to take inspiration from another artist and stay in the same genre as them. For some reason, this is an open fire to compare and analyze how a new artist tries to be a ‘wannabe’ or ‘copycat’. Society has a hard time to tolerate two successful women in the same room.
Not to mention the public’s obsession with denigrating women and claiming their success is the work of a man. If a woman was stuck on an island alone for two years and had to write and produce music herself, the media would find a reason to prove that a man contributed as much, if not more, to her work than she did. That’s the only answer.
Women in the music industry are criticized countless times for being bitchy, snotty, boring, or just known for their looks and sex appeal. A man can throw a chair off a bar patio and get arrested for being extremely drunk, and a week later he’s headlining a music festival. A woman, on the other hand, can stand on stage and watch as the microphone is taken away from her, even though she was only on stage through her hard work, and years later watch the media and celebrities call her a snake, a fraud, and talentless. A woman expects to walk on stage and perform a two-hour concert with costume changes, dancers, and production and still sound flawless, while a man can walk on stage in jeans with a guitar without being called boring, lifeless, and lazy. Not once is a man criticized for bragging about how much money he makes, or dating women half his age, or what he wears on a red carpet.
This stigma against women in the industry goes beyond music and extends to film and Hollywood as well. For example, 2023 was a huge year for film, with big movies like Oppenheimer and Barbie constantly being pitted against each other. During the problematic opening monologue of the Golden Globes, Oppenheimer was praised for its innovation, plot, and cinematography, while Barbie was called the movie about “a doll with big boobs.” This one comment undermined the entire relevance and message of the film, which, if you delve deeper than the surface, is actually a very complex commentary on the role of women in society and how the world perceives them. Gerwig’s direction was completely undermined and Margot Robbie’s work in the film was overlooked as well. Women in all areas of Hollywood are used to being looked down upon, and it’s a vicious cycle that seems to have no end.
Women are always too smart, too soft, too tough, too masculine, too feminine, too quiet, too loud, not enough. Olivia Rodrigo comments perfectly on these stigmas in the music industry and in life in general in her song “All American B***h”. She describes herself as the perfect American girl that society expects of all women and emphasizes how specific, contradictory and impossible these standards and “desires” are.
The music industry is a misogynistic place. Society doesn’t like women to be too big or too opinionated. Society likes its women small and simple, because a woman with too much self-esteem is dangerous and threatening to the way we are so used to.
Once a woman attains Taylor Swift status, she is fair game for vicious insults and blatant demonization. Once a woman gets big, she is evil and violent in the eyes of society. When a woman gets big, it is not because of her poetry, her talent, her rigor, or her hard work, because the only answer to why she is so popular is her body, her face, and her looks. Once a woman gets big, her personal life is dissected and criticized for being friends with too many models and dating too many men for people’s tastes. Once a woman gets big, she is supposed to be a mute painting hanging in a gold frame that is perfectly fine to be criticized and analyzed in the cruelest ways.
After a few years of gallery-hopping and the occasional graffiti, society gets tired of its star and leaves her hanging there, collecting dust, waiting and watching as a new rose is plucked from the vine and placed in a jar, shiny and new.
The question now is: who is next?
