chappell roan, your white privilege is showing

a brief discussion of chappell's latest viral complaint

After Chappell Roan appeared on the podcast Call Her Daddy, an infamous neoliberal girlboss podcast, my timeline became cluttered with quote tweets on a specific clip of the interview. I won’t lie, I enjoyed most of the podcast episode, but that specific portion rubbed me the wrong way as well.

In this part of the interview, Chappell complains about how busy her life is and how overwhelmed she is with everything going on in her life as an excuse for limited political activism. This obviously enraged most Twitter users while causing some users to come to her defense.

“People expect me to play by different rules because I’m gay and I should be more politically correct about that and I should actually be way more knowledgeable about it and so I get asked a lot of f—ing crazy questions that my peers would not be asked and that’s because I’m gay. And I have my opinions, but it doesn’t mean that I’m completely like I don’t know everything about every topic I have opinions on…”

And the real kicker was this:

Chappell: “How can these girls tour, write, perform, interview, sleep, eat… and f—ing work out and like how can they do it all and lead a team and be a boss and pay people and like be… so politically educated…”

Alex: “It’s exhausting”

Chappell: “And why the f— are you looking to me for some political answer?”

Let’s first establish the underpinnings of being a musical artist:

When you are creating music, releasing it to the public, honing your musical craft, etc. you tend to have a specific goal in mind: maximize the number of people listening to your music. With that desire for creating a career out of music comes an understanding and an acceptance (to some extent) that you will be perceived and (hopefully) become a public figure if your career takes off.

Now, I understand the desire to release music and become a somewhat well-known, gay-famous figure in specific Internet niches, and not a full-on, A-list celebrity. I also understand the desire to uphold boundaries in public. In fact, I applaud Chappell for speaking out regarding these topics and protecting herself and her loved ones.

However, I, as well as other BIPOC queer folks, have never had the option to “opt-out” of politics the way Chappell Roan wants to because of a little concept called white privilege. Everything is political for me by the nature of my identity and my position in society. For BIPOC, it’s all lived experience. To reach the level of celebrity she has attained just to complain about how hard it is to keep up with politics is not the flex or #relatable point Chappell thinks it is. You are allowed to feel exhausted about this new way of celebrity life while simultaneously acknowledging your privilege and the community that championed your success.

You don’t get to build your brand off the backs of Black trans folks, drag queens, and queer culture just to stay silent on politics once you “made it” when everything is inherently political. What Chappell seems to not understand is why she is being held to a higher standard. Yes, there are absolutely societal expectations at play due to her identity, but it’s not just because she’s gay and that she’s a woman. These things can be acknowledge while also acknowledging her brand and the history that it stands for. Unless she wants to forfeit the highly intersectional, politically weighted cultures that her brand profits from, she must be held accountable.

Public figures’ voices hold more weight than the Average Joe’s. This is a simple fact. Sure, maybe the stuff they may post is performative, but even performative activism can hold weight in today’s dire political climate. Thus, I don’t find it wrong to place political pressure on people in those socially higher positions, while respecting their physical boundaries as human beings.

Further, political activism is not just posting on social media. It’s un-learning, learning, and conversing about topics with folks with different perspectives. Yes, it can be exhausting, but it should be a rewarding thing for a white lesbian woman in the spotlight, not a burden. I can respect the possibility that there are celebrities who may be doing the work behind closed doors, and no, I don’t expect them to all get everything politically correct the first time, especially when they don’t have firsthand experience with a minority identity outside of being queer. I’m not expecting these celebrities to know everything about everything or have the politically correct answers (I’m not sure anyone is). We can all agree to lower expectations there. But it’s one thing to do the work quietly and another to complain on a podcast about the exhaustion of these expectations when you cannot even acknowledge your position of privilege.

Political activism is supposed to be difficult. No one ever said it would be easy. But it is not something to complain about, especially when you sit in a position of power, celebrity, and white privilege.

I love Chappell Roan’s music, and I probably won’t stop listening to it because of this. I teared up out of pride when watching her performance on the Lollapalooza livestream last summer, knowing how far she had come as an artist and how hard she worked to get to this point. I love how fearless she is in calling out paparazzi for bad behavior and owning her identity. This is in no way a call to cancel her.

But time and time again, her refusal to speak up and pay back the community that she profits from is telling, especially in the current climate. That said, I don’t think Chappell should be the only one being held accountable for this either as there are plenty of white queer artists who are similarly lacking in political activism. Let this incidence be a reminder of the sobering reality of white privilege in celebrity culture and the queer community and the duty we have as fans to keep people accountable.