Give us today our daily outrage: the pop star Lorde has decided – after much consideration – to cancel her concert in Israel after a letter from BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) supporters. Cut to a rightwing American rabbi taking out a full-page advert in the Washington Post to denounce her as antisemitic, and also hold her responsible for New Zealand’s entire foreign policy.
All of this seems a bit harsh – expecting a 21-year-old to have a fully formed opinion on something she readily admitted to not knowing much about. This is a woman who sang on her first album about never having been on a plane. This is a woman who also made one of the best albums of 2017, so probably didn’t have a lot of time to refresh her news app every time something happened in global politics (and that would have been a lot of times). This is a woman who thought about something for a while, sought some advice, and then made a decision she thought was best.
I am not sure Lorde should be the flashpoint for people’s anger here. And yet popsters seem to get it in the neck a lot of the time. So here are some tips for besieged entertainers who enter the arena of geopolitical or social issues.
Middle Eastern conflicts
“The Middle East” in itself is a weird term because that’s not even where it is on a map (BRITISH EMPIRE KLAXON), but when the US president is referring to a country called “Nambia”, the bar for geographic accuracy has been set low. Firstly there’s the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is best avoided if you don’t know too much about it. Do not, as Vox once did, write an “explainer” of the conflict that got virtually everything wrong and invented a non-existent bridge.
Then there’s the situation in Syria and neighbouring states. There are a lot of factions and sub-factions across territories: PKK, YPG, SDF, PYD, KCK, pretty much the entire alphabet is covered, and sometimes it is hard to keep track of the “good guys” and the “bad guys”. This is because, you know, this conflict is more complex than that and quite difficult to make a slogan out of for some tour merchandise.
Totalitarians
So many pop stars seem to have a blind spot when it comes to agreeing to perform at birthday parties, weddings, ket raves (maybe not that last one) of the relatives of dictators. Out-and-out dictators. Not even low-key dictators, but full-on unmitigated tyrants. I have no idea why singers are so drawn to the equivalent of, say, jumping out of a cake at Pol Pot’s summer bash, but they are. Nicki Minaj, Jennifer Lopez, Sting and Kanye West (serial offender) have all performed for dubious characters. If you mess up, do the decent thing and donate the proceeds to charity. (As Beyoncé, Usher, Mariah Carey and Nelly Furtado all said they did when they performed for the Gaddafi family).
Party politics
One of the most glaring discrepancies between the Obama and Trump presidential inaugurations, except, obviously for crowd size, was the quality of the performing talent. Obama had: Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Usher and too many others to mention. Trump had some dude in a cowboy hat I had never heard of. There’s actually been a cheering number of pop stars calling out politicians for using their tracks without permission at events, but I also rather enjoy the pop stars who take the Brenda from Bristol approach (“there’s too much politics!”). See Girls Aloud, one of the best girl groups of all time:
“David Cameron said he fancied me. He was just trying to be cool ... Do I fancy him? No! Politicians should stop trying to be cool and get on with running the country.” Exactly, Cheryl.
Terrorism
Remember when Ariana Grande, a then 23-year-old pop star, became a target for opprobrium after her concert was hit by a terrorist attack? Because apparently going home for a few days to spend time with family was not the done thing after being caught up in a terrifying bombing, even though she had already made a statement about how devastated she was?
Those people (Piers Morgan, obviously) quickly had to bite their tongue when Grande organised a free benefit concert two weeks later. Too soon! others said. It’s funny that Grande attracted so much negative attention for handling it all as well as one could, while the Eagles of Death Metal lead singer’s comments about Muslims celebrating in the streets and Bataclan employees being in cahoots with the terrorists went under the radar. Either way, I can’t offer much advice on this one, because it’s all just horrible.
Sexual politics
Your role model here (and in all things) is Beyoncé. Beyoncé who sampled a feminist essay from the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Flawless, and performed that song at an awards ceremony with a huge neon FEMINIST sign behind her. She did all this and was still criticised for wearing a skimpy outfit, because, men. In 2017, Taylor Swift took a break from recording the musical equivalent of a voodoo doll to bring a douche who groped her to justice, suing him for a symbolic $1. This is good too.
When it comes to LGBT stances, early allies such as Madonna and Cyndi Lauper provide good examples; also the rapper Macklemore who, though straight, has been a consistent LGBT rights campaigner, and wrote the quite lovely same-sex marriage anthem Same Love, performing it in Australia just before a postal vote on that issue.
Race issues
Taylor Swift is a great example of a pop star who is particularly woke in one area and less so in another (unlike Beyoncé, who as well as her FEMINIST sign inserted a Black Panthers vignette into her Super Bowl performance, watched by an audience of millions). Swift got into hot water when she defensively reacted to a Nicki Minaj tweet which accurately pointed out the lack of black women nominated for music video awards. Swift took it as a personal insult, but the two have since made up. In truth the whole thing was blown out of all proportion, but is a good example of white people panicking during discussions about race.
Someone who goes out of their way to learn is Katy Perry, who, after some real clangers, went on a journey to “educate herself”. She hasn’t always got it right (see also: model Bella Hadid talking about sneakers, which remains one of the funniest things), but at least she is trying. NB to pop stars: racism does still exist, as Sam Smith was shocked to find out in 2016. It’s not like it has been around for centuries and society is built on it though, so can you really blame him for not knowing?
Charity
Are you even a pop star if you don’t have a charitable foundation bearing your name? The best are celebs who make it to number 19 in the charts once, and assume Grimsby’s comps are crying out for their help funding bongo drums. The main advice here is to avoid the sort of “poverty porn” that Ed Sheeran and Tom Hardy were recently criticised for, which was de rigueur in the 80s. As for charity singles, please, please, can we have videos other than the finger-clicking stars in sound booths. Be like George Michael, who used to organise free concerts for NHS nurses. In fact, be like George Michael in everything.
Brexit
Ringo Starr, just knighted, came out for Brexit, which apparently is a popular position among mega-rich people who don’t actually live in the UK. See also: Morrissey. In fact, the best piece of overall advice to give to pop stars on political issues is that whatever Morrissey’s position on it, take the opposite. (This advice works from about 2000 onwards).
- Hannah Jane Parkinson is a Guardian writer
