{"id":3650,"date":"2021-06-18T16:33:37","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T21:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/read.streamapse.com\/?p=3650"},"modified":"2026-04-13T16:59:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T21:59:25","slug":"for-artists-like-billie-eilish-and-demi-lovato-being-a-pop-star-is-all-about-emotional-stripping-it-once-meant-baring-skin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/?p=3650","title":{"rendered":"For Artists Like Billie Eilish And Demi Lovato, Being A Pop Star Is All About Emotional Stripping – It Once Meant Baring Skin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kristin J. Lieb<\/a>, Emerson College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

In Billie Eilish\u2019s 2019 video for \u201cBury A Friend<\/a>,\u201d the then-17-year-old singer blurs the lines between being in a nightmare and being committed to a psychiatric hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to end me,\u201d she repeats six times<\/a> before the song ends.<\/p>\n

But somehow, that\u2019s not what stuck with audiences, media outlets or industry decision-makers, who \u2013 until her British Vogue cover broke on May 2<\/a> \u2013 were more likely to talk about how groundbreaking she was for wearing baggy clothes<\/a> than her repeated mentions of suicidal thoughts.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a familiar story, whether it\u2019s Amy Winehouse singing about not wanting to go to rehab<\/a> before dying of alcohol poisoning at 27, or Kurt Cobain writing a song called \u201cI Hate Myself and Want To Die<\/a>\u201d before dying by suicide at 27.<\/p>\n

Audiences devour trauma narratives. Perhaps they provide a source of comfort by validating viewers\u2019 own experiences, making them feel less alone or reminding them that they\u2019re comparatively lucky. On the flip side, the titillating content can offer fans a sort of voyeuristic pleasure from the safety of their living rooms. In any case, the implicit agreement appears to be that artists may express their pain as long as audiences can imagine that it\u2019s not really a problem they need to be concerned with, but is just something being amplified for artistic effect.<\/p>\n

While these revelations can boost an artist\u2019s popularity, they can also overshadow all other aspects of the artists\u2019 life and work \u2013 and can end up veering into another form of exploitation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After the clothes come off, what\u2019s next?<\/h2>\n

As someone who has studied female pop stars<\/a> for nearly two decades, I\u2019ve written about how, since the advent of MTV in the 1980s, the music industry has fashioned women pop stars to resonate more as sexy entertainers than as talented musicians.<\/p>\n

They are more likely to be framed as gorgeous, frivolous or \u201chot messes<\/a>\u201d than vocally or musically adept. In my book \u201cGender, Branding, and The Modern Music Industry: The Social Construction of Female Popular Music Stars<\/a>,\u201d I argue that positioning and managing female artists this way has had a negative effect on their creative expression, mental health and career longevity.<\/p>\n

Because top stars have been shedding their clothes for decades, skin-deep revelations have become so common they no longer stand out. So, in a crisis for connection, stars reversed the order of operations, keeping their clothes on while sharing their secrets. Stars began to expose their insides \u2013 more specifically, their inner turmoil \u2013 in bids for deeper relationships with their fans.<\/p>\n

This broke the social contract of stardom. For decades, public relations efforts presented women stars as perfect \u2013 an impossible illusion for anyone to maintain. Until stars such as Mariah Carey<\/a> and Whitney Houston<\/a> experienced public breakdowns, their struggles had largely been hidden to protect their impeccable brands.<\/p>\n

Social media further changed the dynamic. Audiences demanded greater authenticity<\/a> rather than PR spin. And that\u2019s exactly what they\u2019ve been getting for the past several years, as pop star brands have begun to embody and reflect current cultural concerns about misogyny, racism, sexual violence and mental health.<\/p>\n

#MeToo paves the way for emotional stripping<\/h2>\n

Artists\u2019 openness about their experiences with sexual violence, trauma and addiction represents an important shift toward thinking about them as people more than products.<\/p>\n

However, today, many artists are making their personal vulnerabilities \u2013 not their music, their performances or their bodies \u2013 the centerpiece of their brands.<\/p>\n

Prior to the popularization of #MeToo in 2017, pop stars had been offering their stories for years to varying levels of reception. In 2013, Madonna shared that she had been raped at knifepoint<\/a> shortly after moving to New York City. In 2014, Kesha alleged that producer Dr. Luke<\/a> \u201csexually, physically, verbally, and emotionally\u201d abused her for years, and in 2016 Lady Gaga revealed that she had experienced sexual trauma<\/a>, which resulted in ongoing PTSD.<\/p>\n

As the #MeToo movement<\/a> gained prominence in the fall of 2017, these popular artists experienced a long-overdue cultural rebranding, becoming esteemed warriors seeking to hold abusive systems and individual abusers accountable.<\/p>\n

Audiences and media outlets became more sensitive to women\u2019s struggles with mental health, addiction and trauma, and began to realize that maybe the stars\u2019 breakdowns were actually reasonable human responses to various forms of gender-based abuse. They started hating the game, rather than blaming the players, and wanting to know more \u2013 all as the dominant streaming services were thirsty for more winning content.<\/p>\n

The floodgates opened, but in typical American fashion, a good thing was overextended to the point of absurdity.<\/p>\n

In recent years, more stars have told their own survivor stories in powerfully direct or resonant ways: Ariana Grande shared a brain scan to reveal her PTSD diagnosis in 2019<\/a>; Mariah Carey released a memoir<\/a> in which she discussed past abuse, her 2001 breakdown and her bipolar disorder diagnosis; and, in 2021, Pink dropped a documentary<\/a> about her aptly titled \u201cBeautiful Trauma\u201d world tour.<\/p>\n

Stars\u2019 talent and musicianship has become almost incidental, subservient to their ability to process their pain in public. Pop stars\u2019 oversharing detailed trauma stories has become routine.<\/p>\n

I call it \u201cemotional stripping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emotional stripping is different from when artists transform trauma into great art, as Beyonc\u00e9 did in \u201cLemonade<\/a>\u201d and Fiona Apple pulled off in \u201cFetch The Bolt Cutters<\/a>.\u201d In each album, the artist is able to universalize her struggles without giving away all of the personal details<\/a>. These albums embolden the stars as they share their rage, fear, disappointments and vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

But emotional stripping prioritizes the overexposure of the star\u2019s human self \u2013 her traumas, her addictions, and her mental health struggles \u2013 above all other aspects of her brand and her personhood. When a star emotionally strips, she peels away her brand \u2013 which, if built and managed properly, should be the protective layer between herself and her audience.<\/p>\n

This trend signals progress in one regard \u2013 audiences are now less singularly focused on objectifying the stars\u2019 actual bodies, as they had been trained to do for decades. But it also creates a new danger; now audiences feel entitled to know the gory details about everything that happens to and within stars\u2019 bodies and minds. They greedily consume trauma stories rather than thinking more deeply about how to stop the production of them.<\/p>\n

Emotional stripping pays dividends: It gets the audience\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

It can also come at great expense to the artist, who doesn\u2019t magically heal by simply telling her story from a large enough platform. Talking about trauma has value, but it does not release it; as trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk noted in the title of his bestselling book<\/a>, \u201cthe body keeps the score.\u201d It can also cause stars harm through retraumatization<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pop star as human sacrifice<\/h2>\n

But given audience demands for authenticity and the proliferation of pop star tell-all streaming documentaries, it appears that most emerging artists vying for the top of the charts now have little choice but to reveal themselves anyway. Just as certain body types and fashion styles have defined the rules of engagement at other times, emotional stripping has become standard operating procedure in popular music.<\/p>\n

This may seem like a dream come true. But it may be more like the waking nightmare depicted in Eilish\u2019s video for \u201cBury A Friend<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Britney Spears<\/a> and other 1990s stars, from Jennifer Love Hewitt to Paris Hilton<\/a>, reported being triggered by \u201cFraming Britney Spears<\/a>,\u201d a well-intentioned, pro-Britney documentary. Spears refused to participate in the film, which chronicled her breakdown, involuntary hospitalization and subsequent conservatorship. In the documentary \u201cTina,\u201d Tina Turner indicated<\/a> that she was sick of talking about her abusive ex-husband Ike and wanted to move on.<\/p>\n

The question is: Will audiences let Turner and other traumatized female pop stars move on? Or are audiences too invested in trauma narratives to let them go?<\/p>\n

Fans\u2019 laser focus on stars and stars\u2019 tendency to please can even lead fans to disturbing levels of entitlement. Alanis Morissette, who wrote \u201cJagged Little Pill\u201d when she was 19, shared that at the height of her popularity<\/a>, fans in crowds would literally try to grab pieces of her hair and skin. They wanted to possess a piece of her and felt emboldened to just take it. Fittingly, Katy Perry\u2019s documentary was called \u201cPart of Me<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, it\u2019s typically the star, not the audience, who gets constructed as being crazy or needing better boundaries as the public annihilates them.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a precedent for this dynamic \u2013 the religious ritual of human sacrifice.<\/p>\n

Religion scholar Kathryn Lofton has written about this phenomenon<\/a> in her analysis of Britney Spears.<\/p>\n

\u201cRitual is a controlled environment, a ring for spectatorship. While there are many rituals at play in the religions of Britney Spears\u2019 celebrity, perhaps the most tempting is that of sacrifice. Britney Spears rises and falls, time and again, is plumped for the slaughter then primed for the comeback. Watching those declines and ascents might be productively read as a sort of public sacrifice.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Spears has become the rule, not the exception. These days, pop stars seem to exist to entertain fans and carry their burdens, and can sometimes seem to even ultimately die for them, commercially or literally. Fans then move on to the next star, gorge on their trauma and then watch them flame out.<\/p>\n

The silver lining is that we\u2019re in the middle of the golden age of pop star documentaries. Some, like \u201cAmy<\/a>\u201d and \u201cWhitney Can I Be Me<\/a>,\u201d chronicle tragic endings. Others enable stars to show their more vulnerable sides while they\u2019re still alive and performing \u2013 \u201cBillie Eilish: The World\u2019s A Bit Blurry<\/a>,\u201d Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cMiss Americana<\/a>\u201d and Lady Gaga\u2019s \u201cFive Foot Two<\/a>.\u201d Many of these documentaries complicate their subjects in positive ways, rehabilitating their troubled or entitled images by inserting nuance, empathy and context into their stories, often for the first time.<\/p>\n

A Demi-goddess of the zeitgeist<\/h2>\n

Woman pop stars are finally starting to be seen more completely, at least superficially, as documentary filmmakers deliver to evolved and evolving audiences nuanced takes on complicated and aspirational women.<\/p>\n

But this momentary opportunity has quickly developed into what can look like a competition for which star can be the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Demi Lovato, who recently came out as nonbinary<\/a>, may be winning that distinction with \u201cDancing With The Devil<\/a>,\u201d a four-part documentary series that explores their personal and career challenges. In it, they speak candidly about their attempts to recover from an eating disorder, several sexual assaults, drug addiction and a near-death overdose. Lovato also talks about their difficulties coming out as a queer person.<\/p>\n

These are all important conversations started by feminist, LGBTQ, civil rights and public health activists, but only pop stars such as Lovato have the platforms to launch national and global conversations about them. Their series is bold and moving, and sheds light on the impact of trauma and addiction on the star, their loved ones and their professional team.<\/p>\n

What remains to be seen is how the series will impact Lovato\u2019s career. It could strengthen their relationship with their fans, or make fans focus even less on Lovato\u2019s music than they do now, and make Lovato even more vulnerable now that their whole human self is available for public scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Lovato, who is now 28, overdosed in 2018, surviving some brutal effects: three strokes, a heart attack and partial blindness. In \u201cAnyone<\/a>,\u201d a song recorded days before the overdose, Lovato laments telling \u201csecrets till my voice was sore\u201d because \u201cno one hears me anymore,\u201d \u201cnobody\u2019s listening.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m on my ninth life,\u201d Lovato said in \u201cDancing With The Devil,\u201d \u201cand I don\u2019t know how many opportunities I have left.\u201d<\/p>\n

The need for better listening<\/h2>\n

For those consuming these films for more than their entertainment value, who thoughtfully engage with the content and internalize its lessons, key questions about existing relationships between artists and fans should be emerging. What are they processing, absorbing and sacrificing for audiences? What can be done to help them negotiate the line between revelation and self-preservation?<\/p>\n

In her 2020 book \u201cCall Your \u2018Mutha\u2019: A Deliberately Dirty-Minded Manifesto for the Earth Mother in the Anthropocene<\/a>,\u201d gender and sexuality scholar Jane Caputi compares the extraction of resources from the land to the enduring damage to bodies and minds caused by sexual violence. In an interview, she told me that the emotional stripping of pop stars enacts \u201cthat same paradigm of extraction without reciprocity, of taking what one wants and dumping what one refuses,\u201d with places and peoples reduced to \u201csacrifice zones.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Caputi suggests that this emotional stripping abuse of female pop stars reflects larger patterns of exploitation, communication scholar Nancy Baym argues<\/a> that music \u201coften predicts social change.\u201d If that\u2019s true, maybe the regular exposure of previously taboo subjects such as addiction and sexual abuse could minimize their stigma, and make audiences less drawn to the subjects.<\/p>\n

Perhaps then \u2013 finally \u2013 the musicians\u2019 actual music can be the central focus of their careers.<\/p>\n

And while it\u2019s unlikely emotional stripping will stop, the music industry could become more involved in helping these stars survive and thrive. This could range from adding thoughtful and inclusive wellness provisions to artist contracts \u2013 including seasoned hazards-of-fame counselors in the standard artist entourage \u2013 and teaching fans how to be less reliant on their idols and more emotionally secure themselves. They could also train the parents of young artists on the cusp of fame to be more attuned to signs of distress in their children.<\/p>\n

In \u201cLonely<\/a>,\u201d the closing track on Justin Bieber\u2019s new record, he sings: \u201cEverybody saw me sick, and it felt like no one gave a shit.\u201d GQ reported in May 2021<\/a> that at the peak of Bieber\u2019s fame, his bodyguards would check his pulse as he slept to make sure he was still alive.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Bieber\u2019s words could lead his fans and team to consider their complicity.<\/p>\n

Despite the positive attention and accolades she receives, Eilish, too, appears to be screaming into the void. In \u201cBury a Friend\u201d Eilish sings: \u201cHonestly, I thought that I would be dead by now (Wow).\u201d Her notebooks, shown in her documentary, reveal lines like: \u201cI am a void. The epitome of nothing\u201d and \u201cI am going to drink acid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet at one point in the film, Eilish\u2019s mother, frustrated by people calling Billie\u2019s music \u201cdepressing,\u201d notes that Billie\u2019s music isn\u2019t depressing, it\u2019s just that teenagers are depressed.<\/p>\n

To me, this lands like denial, gaslighting or both.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a stop gap for artist care,\u201d artist manager Janet Billig-Rich, who managed Nirvana and Hole, among others, told me. \u201cThere is a parallel to the Amy Winehouse story where people are saying, \u2018At least the parents are there and really involved.\u2019 But they\u2019re on the payroll, too, so there\u2019s a conflict. There need to be people in that inner circle thinking only about the artist\u2019s interest. If we could convince the families and business people to be long-term greedy rather than short-term greedy, the artists would have longer, healthier lifespans and even more lucrative careers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is the best we can hope for from the music business.\"The<\/p>\n

Kristin J. Lieb<\/a>, Associate Professor, Emerson College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kristin J. Lieb, Emerson College In Billie Eilish\u2019s 2019 video for \u201cBury A Friend,\u201d the then-17-year-old singer blurs the lines between being in a nightmare and being committed to a psychiatric hospital. \u201cI want to end me,\u201d she repeats six times before the song ends. But somehow, that\u2019s not what stuck with audiences, media outlets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[85,43,546,499,501,547,548],"class_list":["post-3650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-about","tag-artists","tag-being","tag-billie","tag-eilish","tag-emotional","tag-lovato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5726,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3650\/revisions\/5726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}