BLERD WITH A BOOK
The former Nickelodeon star-turned-filmmaker weaves an uncomfortable, sad, and darkly humorous tale out of her complicated relationship with her abusive, overbearing mother and her dark experiences with child stardom.
TITLE: I'm Glad My Mom Died
AUTHOR: Jennette McCurdy PUBLISHER & YEAR: Simon & Schuster 2022 PAGES: 304 GENRE: Memoir SUMMARY: Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first audition. Her mother's dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called "calorie restriction," eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, "Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn't tint hers?" She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income. In this darkly funny and deeply heartbreaking memoir, the former child actor recounts her complicated relationship with her mother in unflinching detail -- just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, Jennette is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi ("Hi, Gale!"), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest itself into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. Her hardships only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spin-off Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time what she really wants. HOW DID I GET THIS BOOK?: Purchased FORMAT: Hardcover CONTENT WARNING
For readers interested in purchasing a copy of I'm Glad My Mom Died, please be aware that this book can be very triggering, especially if you are struggling with past traumas related to eating disorders, addition, ill mental health, parental abuse, sexual grooming and child abuse, and codependency. I highly recommend that you look up the trigger warnings for this book before deciding to purchase a copy.
Additionally, this edition of Blerd Reads will contain discussions of such subjects, how they're rendered in the book, and how it resonated personally with me. If these topics are triggering for you, please take the appropriate precautions before reading, and, if one of those precautions is skipping this post, I understand. You matter. Your mental health matters. You are allowed to prioritize yourself.
Jennette McCurdy (left) and Miranda Cosgrove (right) in a still from Nickelodeon's iCarly (2007-2012; 2021-)
Normally, I'm ambivalent about celebrity memoirs.
Although there are some great ones out there (e.g. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah; Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher; She Memes Well by Quinta Brunson; You Can't Be Serious by Kal Penn; We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu; Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner; and Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein), many of them are pretty terrible (e.g. Yearbook by Seth Rogen; Life by Keith Richards; All By My Selves by Jeff Dunham; Bossypants by Tina Fey; Yes, Please by Amy Poehler; The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer; A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost; Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham; and I Can't Make This Up by Kevin Hart). Truth be told, many celebrity memoirs are formulaic, taking (what they find) the most comedic and/or dramatic elements from the three stages of their lives -- pre-fame, making it big, and having their eyes opened to the dark side of fame while still enjoying the very fame they decried for whatever reasons -- and turning them into a long-form narrative that would definitely work better as a late-night talk show story. It's the literary equivalent of your expected Hollywood summer blockbuster, except it's slated to drop on a streamer with little to no advertising in the lead-up to release day. Moreover, a number of celebrity memoirs pass on this weird message about trauma and empowerment, implying that trauma can make someone stronger and help them find meaning or become a more insightful and empathetic human being. (Fun fact: That kind of message also suggests that a person needs to go through personal growth after enduring trauma, and that's harmful and short-sighted.) So when former child actor Jennette McCurdy, best known for her portrayal of sardonic tomboy teen Sam Puckett on the hit Nickelodeon series iCarly and its spin-off Sam & Cat, announced she was writing a memoir, I didn't pay a lot of attention to it. Again, celebrity memoirs are a dime a dozen. Then, like many others, I saw the cover and the title -- and, true to McCurdy's word, both of them were attention-grabbing. Sporting a pastel pink outfit (with a matching urn, filled with light pink confetti inside), her brownish-blonde hair tied into a high ponytail, and an uncomfortable half-smile, the cover for McCurdy's memoir aptly fit its shocking title: I'm Glad My Mom Died. Culturally, we're taught early on to never speak ill of our parents, and this rule is doubly enforced when it comes to dead parents. If our parents do anything to hurt their children when they're alive, children -- and, by extension, society at large -- is expected to forgive and forget once they've moved on from this life and onto the next plane. Our biggest pop culture artifacts even instill in us the message that parents who don't always do right by their child should always be absolved of their transgressions and bad behavior when death is near. Just look at the "Bad Dads" in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for example; films such as Thor: Ragnarok, Iron Man 2, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings depict these protagonists as the victims of parental abuse and neglect at the hands of their fathers, but their deaths -- combined with some final act of love before their passing (e.g. Wenwu giving Shang-Chi control of the Ten Rings, Howard Stark making a poignant video message professing his love for his oft-neglected son Tony, and Odin affectionately regarding Thor and his adopted son Loki as his children after eons of pitting the two brothers against each other and neglecting the latter son on account of his Frost Giant roots) -- serve to redeem them. If the protagonist could find it in their heart to forgive their shitty dad, so can the audience. But real life doesn't work like a Marvel movie. And, as a culture, we've accepted that bad dads are commonplace, so we don't really have a problem with charging men with being deadbeat, abusive, or just plain bad dads. ​Call a woman a bad mom, though, and prepare to get metaphorically stoned at the town square (read: Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or any other social app of your choice). When the title of McCurdy's memoir was revealed, naturally, the Internet had opinions, and a number of them were devoted to discrediting her experiences with her now-deceased abusive mother. As expected, when someone finally gains the confidence to reveal they are a survivor of some form of abuse, the public loves to believe they are entitled to sharing their opinions, arguments, and "I'm just saying" comments in digital spaces, and that public reaction only becomes more pointed when the person speaking up does not match the public perception of an abuse survivor, and given that McCurdy was the star of one of Nickelodeon's biggest tween comedies of the mid-noughties to early 2010s, going public with her account of surviving maternal abuse was always going to draw the worst kind of takes from people who aren't really all that informed about abuse in general, let alone parental abuse. Furthermore, in the rush to do some unnecessary pearl-clutching and drop some crappy takes about McCurdy's choice to title her memoir the way she did, the public reaction further not only highlights how apathetic we are towards abuse survivors, but that we're also ill-prepared to discuss the scary reality of mothers being capable of abusing their children. (After all, some of us have seen Mommie Dearest at least once, so we know maternal abuse is a thing... even if the story presented in the film is, to put it nicely, complicated.) The Mother Figure is such a deeply revered -- and, thus, protected -- cultural symbol that upholding the belief in a mother's inherent purity and goodness -- which that stems from a cultural, misogynistic understanding of women and femmes' role in families -- is more important than believing someone when they say their mother abused them. As a culture, we're more unforgiving towards women who are anything less than the "perfect mother" (whatever the hell that means), resulting in survivors of maternal abuse struggling to voice their experiences and people quickly running to discredit the children and family members who have endured such horrifying behaviors directly and continue to live with the emotional, mental, and physical traumas of said abuse. Although I'm Glad My Mom Died will not change the overall cultural perception and understanding of the Mother Figure myth and the inability to imagine mothers as capable of abusing their children overnight, I have immense respect for McCurdy writing this book. Obviously, writing I'm Glad My Mom Died had to be difficult. As a reader, this was an intense book to get through (and I'll go on to discuss those reasons later), but I couldn't help but think about what it had to be like for McCurdy to write it. Writing a memoir where you recount your complicated relationship with your overbearing and abusive mother not only puts you at risk of a judgmental public, it also puts you at risk of being estranged from your own family. (Thankfully, McCurdy has the support of her older brothers, who understood her approach to the book and discussing their mother's behavior.) Moreover, it forces the author to return to old memories, conversations, and mindsets, a harrowing journey through past traumas to uncover complex insights gained and difficult lessons learned. (I can't even begin to imagine what the writing process had to have been like for McCurdy, and I hope she's surrounded by a caring and empathetic support system these days.) In returning to memories of her complicated relationship with her abusive mother and it impacted her from childhood to adulthood, I'm Glad My Mom Died weaves together a mostly dark, sometimes darkly humorous, and all-around raw story about growing up with an abusive mother who disguised her harmful behaviors as acts of love and care all while dealing with the emotionally and creatively stifling world of child celebrity.
Jennette McCurdy and The Nickelodeon Years
(from L to R) A still from Nickelodeon's iCarly (2007-2012; 2021-) Jennette McCurdy as Sam Puckett, Miranda Cosgrove as Carly Shay, and Nathan Kress as Freddie Benson.
Naturally, there are going to be people interested in McCurdy's memoir for one reason and one reason only: the iCarly years.
I'll admit: I was curious to hear about McCurdy feels about her experiences working on the show now that she was an adult. I wondered if she found certain running gags or episodes embarrassing now that she was older. Although it wasn't the sole reason why I purchased I'm Glad My Mom Died, getting a chance to read a book from an actor on one of my favorite childhood TV shows piqued my interest. Even though I'm in my mid-twenties and I've got some sense of how the American entertainment industry works, mentally I was transported back to the 2000s, sitting in front of my living room TV and wondering how did anyone on iCarly got any work done because the set looked like so much fun to pre-tween me. As a result, I was completely unprepared for McCurdy's blistering account of being a vulnerable pre-teen who was used and exploited by not only her mother, but also the industry. Prior to 2018, Nickelodeon had a sterling reputation for producing some of the biggest and brightest child actors who would grow up to become successful adult stars, especially throughout late '90s and early '00s. All That launched Kenan Thompson's career as a sketch comedy star, eventually taking him to a starring role in the beloved 90s sitcom Kenan & Kel (which also served as a launching pad for Thompson's All That co-star Kel Mitchell) and, now, to being one of the most lauded (and longest-running) players in the modern history of NBC's Saturday Night Live. The Amanda Show introduced audiences to a young Amanda Bynes, who would go on to star in a number of cult 00s comedies, such as She's The Man and What a Girl Wants. Alongside Bynes, child actors Drake Bell and Josh Peck also gained fame on The Amanda Show before headlining their own series Drake & Josh and eventually moving on to work on major projects such as the short-lived Turner & Hooch remake for Disney Plus (Peck) and voicing one of the most beloved comic book characters of all time, Peter Parker/Spider-Man, in Ultimate Spider-Man (Bell). (Fun fact: As a kid, Cosgrove also starred on Drake & Josh as their devious little sister Megan throughout the show's entire run and in two TV movies featuring all three characters before headlining iCarly.) Shows like All That, The Amanda Show, Kenan & Kel, Drake & Josh, and iCarly may seem like disparate '90s- early '00s classics/cult favorites loosely connected by its stars -- this may have been Nickelodeon's multiverse of madness -- but they're forever bonded to each other by one man: Dan Schneider. Until 2018, Schneider was one of Nickelodeon's most successful, powerful, and beloved creatives. Without him, audiences wouldn't have been introduced to Thomspon, Bynes, Ariana Grande (Cat on Victorious and Sam & Cat), or Victoria Justice (Lola on Zoey 101 and Tori on Victorious). If it weren't for Schneider, the golden era of Nickelodeon -- i.e. the late 90s and early noughties -- would have been long forgotten. Then, all of a sudden, Schneider's legacy warped into something horrendous and appalling. At first, Nickelodeon let him go after an investigation into verbal abuse allegations raised by colleagues. Notably, prior to McCurdy's book, actress Alexa Nikolas, who played Nicole on Zoey 101, was the first to come forward with her experiences working on the series, calling the series set environment "traumatizing." From there, multiple child actors recalled Schneider yelling at them until they cried, while a writer referred to him as "a really scary presence." However, the ways he hurt cast and crew members went beyond verbal abuse. Schneider later faced numerous allegations regarding abusive on-set behavior, ranging from creating a hostile work environment to oversexualizing minor actresses he would also attempt to have interact with inappropriately in-person or via private messages. Moreover, Schneider allegedly discriminated against female crew members while also asking female cast and crew members to give him massages or participate in other "embarrassing activities," ranging from hugging female crew members for an extended period of time to pressuring a female writer to mimic a sexual act while telling a personal story. McCurdy's memoir, however, shows that Schneider (a.k.a. "The Creator") didn't limit his treatment to female adults. One particular recollection, which was published by Vanity Fair in the lead up to the release of I'm Glad My Mom Died, saw Schneider pressuring an eighteen-year-old McCurdy to drink some alcohol and massaging her shoulders while she sat in uncomfortable silence. McCurdy's recollections of her life at Nickelodeon paints a bleak and disturbing picture of what life was like for a young girl working at of the most famous children's television networks. With hindsight, McCurdy and many others who crossed Schneider's path have gained the confidence and understanding needed to label his gross behavior as abusive, hostile, and/or misogynistic. Most importantly, their stories lend further credence to the image of Nickelodeon as a network fostering unsafe and unacceptable work environments for its child actors -- and choosing to protect its abusive adult creators. When detailing her departure from Nickelodeon later in her memoir, McCurdy alleges the network offered her up to $300,000 to stay silent about her experiences at the network, particularly Schneider's disturbing behavior. (Fortunately, she declined and decided to share her experiences in I'm Glad My Mom Died.) Through McCurdy's experiences, it becomes clear that, for a long time, Nickelodeon was not acting in the best interest for the child actors they employed, covering up years of abusive behavior and offering people hush money to maintain its squeaky clean image as one of the most successful and beloved kids television networks. Moreover, McCurdy's experience at Nickelodeon signifies the cycles of abuse she was trapped in from childhood to adolescence. In addition to her abusive mother, McCurdy was also mistreated and exploited by another adult who violated her trust and disregarded her safety and well-being, on top of the industry she'd been a part of since she was six years old (more on this fact in a moment). Nickelodeon made a big star out of her Sam & Cat co-star Ariana Grande -- and their differing career paths, as well as the feelings of resentment and despondency McCurdy developed as she watched Nickelodeon give Grande the space to rise and thrive are recounted in heartbreaking and darkly humorous detail -- but the network trapped McCurdy long after she left her teen years and, because her mother deprived her of an opportunity to develop a sense of independence and identity on her own terms, she was unable to stand up for herself. The Nickelodeon-centric chapters of I'm Glad My Mom Died bleakly affirms that child stars and child stardom should not be a thing. Jennette McCurdy is yet another child actor -- other examples include Star Trek alum Wil Wheaton and Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin -- who was forced into becoming her family's primary breadwinner by an abusive stage parent who robbed her of a happy, healthy, and loving childhood and left her vulnerable to exploitation, commodification, and inappropriate conduct on a television set. Acting and the creation of art as a whole is an act of labor, and for a parent to force their kid into labor when they are young and leave them vulnerable to gross abusers on top of being a gross abuser is just disturbing. It's no wonder McCurdy calls the world of child acting and child stardom a "phony, bizarre sphere."
The Woman Behind Jennette
Writer, director, and podcaster Jennette McCurdy, former star of Nickelodeon's iCarly and author of "I'm Glad My Mom Died," photographed for Harper's Bazaar. (2022 | Brian Kimskey)
Ultimately, as interesting -- and, at times, unnerving -- as the author's time at Nickelodeon is, much of I'm Glad My Mom Died is centered around McCurdy's complicated relationship with her mother.
To an outside observer, McCurdy looked like she was living the high life; not only was she was the star of a hit Nickelodeon series, but she also had a seemingly picture-perfect relationship with her mother, Debra (who died of breast cancer in 2013), as the two seemed super close and loving in every picture they took together at red carpet events. Sadly, looks tend to be deceiving. At the age of six, McCurdy was pushed into acting by her mother, seemingly in a bid to live out a youthful dream she had to defer vicariously through her youngest child. Yet, as she details at different points in the novel, McCurdy never had a desire to act (One heartrending passage in the book involves a young Jennette sharing her screenwriting dreams with her mother, only for Debra to shut them down by demoralizing her. And, to add insult to injury, Debra tossed in a comment about her concerns over her daughter's little "peach butt" becoming a writer's big, fat "watermelon butt," likely for no other reason except to fuel her daughter's future relationship with body dysmorphia.), but, as a child, she was powerless to do anything about it. Anytime she tried to bring up the prospect of leaving acting, Debra bullied the young girl into continuing with a career path she had no desire to follow. McCurdy's rendering of her late mother is as complex as it is disturbing. I'll admit: there were times where I felt sympathy for Debra. As I noted, McCurdy recounts that her mother dreamed of becoming an actress, moving away from her parents' home so she could pursue her dreams of stardom. Unfortunately, as we later learn, Debra's parents didn't share that dream, leaving their daughter with no choice but to defer that dream and become a housewife and mother of three. Debra seemingly never had the opportunity to be independent, to discover what life she wanted for herself away from her parents. It's heartbreaking to learn... but in no way does that excuse the harmful behaviors she subjects not only her own children to but also to her husband and any person she views as a threat -- or, perhaps, possibly better than her. A breast cancer patient who went into remission for years prior to her passing, Debra used her diagnosis as a leverage/guilt tool against her husband, her children, and run-of-the-mill strangers. As a result, her young daughter grew up fearing for her mother's life, clinging to her as much as possible and leaving Jennette unprepared for life on her own. In addition to her daughter, Debra's harmful and disturbing behavior extended to her husband -- whom she regularly verbally abused and even threatened with physical violence on occasion -- and her oldest sons -- one of whom was sometimes forced to shower or take baths with a pre-teen Jennette. In a way, Debra winds up trapping her children in a cycle that she may have been trapped in herself with her own parents, but it's her daughter who suffers the most of all. One of the most disturbing moments in I'm Glad My Mom Died involves Debra introducing a "solution" to the problem of Jennette getting older and hitting puberty. At age eleven, it was already ingrained into the author's head that getting older would not only be detrimental to her child acting career -- the fact that Hollywood does indeed have a tendency to throw out child stars when they hit puberty like old clothes taking up space in a closet likely did not help matters -- but also to her personal growth. (After all, Jennette getting older meant that Debra would likely not be able to control her daughter more as the girl would grow into her own independent person.) So, when her pre-teen daughter asked about how to keep from "getting boobies," Debra decided it was time to introduce Jennette to the world of calorie restriction -- which that a therapist an adult Jennette saw viewed as a gateway to the eating disorders the actress later developed. (The memoir's introduction includes a humorous but sad moment where Jennette tries to wake her mother out of a coma by bragging about how skinny she was.) Needless to say, there's something deeply unsettling about a mother introducing her daughter to the realm of eating disorders, but what disturbed me more was how much it somewhat mirrored my own personal relationships with weight and food. While my mother did not introduce me to eating disorders, her concern trolling over my health caused me to become hypersensitive about my body; the bullying I received at school over my appearance only worked to confirm she was seemingly right all along about how overweight I was. As a kid, eating food was a nightmare. So was buying clothes and being surrounded by images of thin, attractive white women with the brunette or blonde hair and green or blue eyes I so desperately wanted instead of the fat, Black body, thick and kinky black hair, and dark brown eyes I was born with. When I was younger, my weight fluctuated more frequently than it does now in my mid-twenties. Much of it was caused by stress over school, family conflicts out of my control, and, naturally the bullying I received at school and at home. I remember the crash dieting I did in high school, losing a significant amount weight to the point where I now scare myself when I look back at pictures during that time. I also remember the nights I binge ate to the point where I felt sick. In my late teens and early twenties, there were times where when my mental health was at its lowest, and I foolishly ate a lot and gained as much weight as possible as a means of taking my own life. (Was I suicidal then? Not necessarily, but there were times where I often thought about death and dying, thinking of it as an antidote to all the resentment and trauma I was repressing.) It's upsetting to reflect on those years, but, in a way, it is somewhat comforting to know that I was not alone in having skewed relationships with food, body, and mind. Although I never suffered from an eating disorder, I have immense empathy for Jennette; no child should be taught so young to fear the food that enters their bodies, let alone fear the body naturally growing. Unfortunately, Debra's behavior towards her daughter until the end of her life, particularly where Jennette's body and personal growth is concerned, emphasizes the way society and culture teaches girls and femmes to be repulsed by their bodies, to fear it getting thicker, thinner, and/or older. On top of that, it also emphasizes how child actors -- and, by extension, children in general -- are taught from a young age to view themselves as a commodity. In a society that hypersexualizes (and criticizes) them long before they hit puberty, girls and femmes are immediately conditioned to view their body as belonging to everyone else instead of them. Despite the efforts of femme performers like Billie Eilish, who deliberately picks clothing that challenges the male gaze that constantly gets applied to her, and Phoebe Bridgers, who often sported a skull onesie at her live performances and in promotional images for her music, how girls and femmes see themselves, dress themselves, and carry themselves in private and public is often always influenced by external societal and cultural forces that wants to infantilize them while also objectifying them. Should they reject that lot in life, they are immediately vilified and objectified some more (see: Emma Watson's 2017 Vanity Fair spread, where the actress/feminist -- who's also been acting since she was a child -- had to defend the choice of clothes she wore for the photo shoot); should they mostly abide by those rules, they still get objectified and ridiculed to the point where they might be pushed to self-loathing and/or physical and emotional harm (e.g. Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, and Taylor Swift; notice how the examples I'm listing are women and femmes who've been a part of the industry since they were youngsters?) Imagine internalizing that shit from a young age with the help of your mother, who then pushes you into an industry where that horribleness is the norm. Worse yet, Debra had no problem subjecting her daughter to verbal and physical abuse, as well as emotional manipulation, in addition to introducing and condoning her eating disorders. At one point, McCurdy recalls receiving a horrible email from her mother while on vacation, who proceeds to call her a "slut," claim her brothers have disowned her due to her behavior, call her "an ugly monster," and chastise her for gaining weight. (The icing on the metaphorical shit cake? Debra closes out the letter asking for her daughter, the family's primary breadwinner, to send some money to buy a new fridge since their old one broke.) This particular exchange comes after a stark scene where Debra attempts to throw something at her daughter's head, yelling about how she knows Jennette is lying and will find out what she's hiding from her. Many people may not like the sentiment expressed by the title of this memoir, but, after reading about the various abuses and harmful actions she's been subjected to by her mother, I absolutely understand why McCurdy titled her memoir the way she did. While there are moments where I as a reader did feel some sympathy for Debra, a woman who not only gave up on a dream she always had but also lived with an illness that threatened to take her away from her children at any moment in the midst of being trapped in an unhappy marriage and inside a hoarder's house, glossing over Debra's abuses would be extremely wrong. Some readers have argued that Debra McCurdy may have been living with an undiagnosed mental illness, and that might be true, but that should not excuse her behavior. Debra McCurdy was an abusive mother, full stop; so much of her behavior comes straight from the abusive parent playbook, and possible, undiagnosed mental illnesses cannot wave away the horrific treatment she subjected her daughter to -- not to mention the traumatic ways in which such treatment stunted Jennette emotionally and harmed her physically, long after her mother passed away.
Women & Femmes and Art That Helps Them -- and Us -- Heal
Writer, director, and podcaster Jennette McCurdy, former star of Nickelodeon's iCarly and author of "I'm Glad My Mom Died," photographed for Vogue (2022 | Brian Kimsley)
I'm Glad My Mom Died is the latest work of art that's been released in a year where a number of famous women and femmes have abided by the late, great Carrie Fisher's somber but sage words of taking your broken heart and turning it into art. (And Fisher would know; she released several books where she wrote honestly and candidly about growing up in a famous family, being one of the most recognizable faces of a juggernaut multimedia franchise, and learning to live with mental illness under the spotlight.)
In the literary department, actress Constance Wu, best known for her roles in Crazy Rich Asians, Hustlers, and Fresh Off the Boat, had her first personal essay collection, Making a Scene, published this year. As a young girl, Wu was often told that girls like her shouldn't make a scene -- something that can be interpreted as Wu being advised to fulfill the harmful stereotype of the "model minority myth" -- but, as readers learn, making a scene is something she's quite good at, for better and for worse. As an actress, making a scene helped Wu build up a status as a rising television and film star. As a known public figure who was highly visible on Twitter, making a scene led to Wu being unfairly subjected to harsh criticism within and outside the AAPI community for voicing her displeasure with Fresh Off the Boat being renewed in 2019. (Knowing the dark and disturbing truth behind Wu's series of tweets only makes the bullying, harassment, and shunning she endured even more heartbreaking and shameful.) Wu's memoir explores the harmful notion of "making a scene" -- especially when it is applied to non-white women and femmes who are often advised to shrink themselves so that white cishet men (and, yes, white cishet women) can take up space and drown them out. In music, artists Demi Lovato (who uses they/she pronouns) and Taylor Swift used their latest albums to deliver personal narratives about survival and identity. With HOLY FVCK, Lovato embraces and subverts Christian imagery and the emo, pop-punk energy of Avril Lavigne and Paramore to deliver a defiant ode to survival. In the sixteen-track album, Lovato gets honest about reconciling their complex religious trauma, being a recovering addict, unlearning constrictive ideas about sexuality and gender, and being the victim of grooming at the hands of an older ex-partner. As Shondaland's Cat Woods notes, HOLY FVCK is Lovato's fun, snarling, and honest attempt at "exorcising the demons of an adulthood of self-hate" through the lens of thrashing pop-punk and Joan Jett-inspired 70s punk rock. On the pop side of the music spectrum, Swift's newest album Midnights sees the artist put her public persona -- specifically the ones that many people have invented for her to occupy -- under scrutiny, getting candid about the self-loathing she lives with on a daily basis (among other subjects) in the viral hit "Anti-Hero" and rejecting the 'overly attached/vengeful girlfriend' stereotype that made her the butt of many ill-advised tabloid and late-night comedy jokes in her song "Karma." In what can aptly be described as nuanced, melancholy pop, Midnights gives Swift an opportunity to showcase her songwriting talents while rejecting the misogynistic public narratives that have followed her throughout her youth and adulthood and taking stock of the many ways said public narratives have harmed her emotionally and physically. On film, actress, makeup mogul, and singer Selena Gomez teams with documentarian Alex Keshishian for the intimate, dark, and compelling Apple TV+ documentary My Mind and Me, which was filmed over the span of six turbulent years in Gomez's life as she struggles with physical and mental illness under the spotlight. My Mind and Me offers viewers a multifaceted and complex look into a young artist's life and how her mental and physical health steadily deteriorated under the public eye, who was already given far too much access into her most private moments, including her highly publicized relationships with Justin Bieber and The Weeknd and her heartbreaking lupus diagnosis. Viewers also get a glimpse into the support system behind Gomez through her darkest moments, though one of her closest friends has faced intense online scrutiny for alleged toxic behavior towards the performer-turned-mental health advocate during some of her lowest points. Much like I'm Glad My Mom Died, My Mind and Me is not for the faint of heart; its bleak capturing of Gomez's physical and mental health battles can prove to be intensely triggering, especially for those who've gone through similar battles. Moreover, the documentary offers a complicated image of how mental illness compounds individual struggles with self-esteem, body image, and reconciling public and private personas on a grand stage; this is further highlighted by the presence and remarks of friends and family members who struggle to provide adequate support and appear visibly uncomfortable -- and, in the case of that alleged toxic friend, frustrated -- by the stark changes in Gomez's emotions and physical strength and appearance. Although all of the works mentioned in this section vary in medium and subject, they are all part of an artistic output that prioritizes creating complex, deep, and oftentimes bleak visions of adulthood, abuse, mental health, fame, romance, family, trauma, religion, and/or shame. Additionally, they are works created by women and femmes who have been -- almost always unfairly -- subjected to intense misogynistic scrutiny in the public eye and/or learned to internalize harmful misogynistic ideas about their bodies as commodities and their private lives as available for public consumption, even if the public is overstepping personal boundaries. I'm Glad My Mom Died and the works that accompany it all feature artists in various stages of their journey towards healing, reminding us that "celebrity" is a title and they are real human beings who are dealing with complex pain, trauma, and emotion. In their own unique ways, these works can also help someone consuming them embark on a journey towards healing. In the case of Jennette McCurdy's memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died voices a sentiment survivors of parental abuse are either often encouraged to be hide or told to be ashamed of, and, in turn, gives them the opportunity to speak their truth -- even if that truth is showing profound joy at the prospect of potentially finding freedom from the emotional, physical, and mental shackles of parental abuse. It's not our place to judge McCurdy's feelings about her mother's passing, nor is it our place to judge those who have complicated relationships with and feelings about their abusive parents. However, if your first instinct is to judge someone who openly refuses to forgive their abusive parent or guardian because it's "taboo," then it's time to really step back and check yourself before you speak on something you clearly shouldn't be talking about. As for Jennette, I'm glad this memoir has offered her a creative space to continue moving forward with healing from maternal abuse, disordered eating, alcohol abuse, and ill mental health, as well as providing her with the opportunity to finally build her own identity and pursue her own creative passions without someone deriding her for pursuing her newfound career path as a writer. Most importantly, though, I'm glad that this memoir has given her the opportunity to speak her truth candidly; not many folx have the strength and support system to embark on this endeavor, and I have so much respect and empathy for Jennette in taking on -- and successfully accomplishing -- this intimate and challenging task.
This Blerd is Online.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Meet Your Friendly Neighborhood Blerd.Hello, one and all.
Welcome to the mothership and prepare to go on a fantastic voyage through the Blerd space-time continnum! I'm Makayla; it's nice to meet you! Pronouns are they/she. Archives
November 2022
Categories
All
|