Mac Miller passed away on September 7 a rapper at the top of his game. The Pittsburgh native had just unearthed his magnum opus — Swimming. It was an album that marked a rapper who’d matured beyond the “frat-rap” days of 2011’s Blue Slide Park, where party-goers revelled as critics turned their heads.
With the release of Swimming, Miller was in his prime. US entertainment magazine Variety lauded the album’s sincerity, praising its “Zen-like calm” and “mix of the smartly nihilistic, the pragmatically cheerful and a glad-to-be-unhappy lyrical signature that’s irresistible in its sourness”.
However, Mac was doing it tough. In early May, he and revered pop star Ariana Grande ended their near two-year relationship, citing their busy work schedules. Just weeks later, Miller was arrested for DUI after crashing his car into a pole and fleeing the scene. Miller’s blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit.
As more details of the break up came to light — whereby reports arose that Miller and Grande had been “struggling for a long time” and “everyone around her [Grande] hated their relationship” — the ‘No Tears Left To Cry’ singer became a subject of abuse.
Constant Instagram censure was consolidated by an angry Twitter user. Elijah Flint tweeted that Miller’s DUI was the “most heartbreaking thing happening in Hollywood” and that Grande “dumped him for another dude”. Grande tweeted back boldly but honestly.
— Ariana Grande (@TheAriiGrandee) May 23, 2018
Given the proximity of the accident to the couple’s break up, it was most convenient for Miller’s fans to point the finger at Grande. She became an easy target as furious fans and media pundits alike began to look for a scapegoat.
Just months later, after the recent suicides of rapper XXXTentacion and Lil Peep before that, nothing could prepare the hip hop industry for the impending grief that loomed.
Miller was found dead in his Californian home on a Friday, from an apparent drug overdose. The music world paused in disbelief, but the situation quickly became real.
The heartache was widespread and tributes poured in from all over the music world. Childish Gambino shared his feelings during a Chicago concert, saying that Miller “was so nice. He was the sweetest guy; he was so nice”. Performing the first show of his farewell tour, Elton John dedicated his performance of ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’to Miller.
Elsewhere, Khalid commemorated his playing of ‘Angels’ to Miller, while Adam Levine of Maroon 5 performed an acoustic version of ‘Lost Stars’ to remember the 26-year-old.
But as the heartfelt remembrances flowed in, the spinning bottle slowed with its neck firmly pointed in one direction. As Twitter and Instagram users reacted to the news, Grande was put in the firing line once again.
The social ammunition targeted at Grande was prolific and eventually, the singer had received so much online harassment that she turned off comments on her Instagram page.
Some of the abuse levelled at Grande before she turned her Instagram comments off included, “good job killing @macmiller”, “this is your fault”, “you did this to him” and “I hope you’re happy with Pete”. Unfortunately, the tired trope of ‘tortured artist broken by a callous ex-lover’ was just too easy to pass up.
Speaking with Broadly, trauma psychologist and associate professor at Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Joan M. Cook said in relation to the Grande situation that, “women carry a tremendous burden of being held responsible when things go wrong in their families”, and that “blaming the victim (often a woman) and exonerating the perpetrator (often a man) is a well-known phenomenon in cases of sexual assault as well”.
America’s National Organization of Women [NOW] shared similar sentiments. “What happened to Ariana Grande was appalling, dehumanizing, and blatantly sexist”, president of NOW, Toni Van Pelt expressed in a statement to Broadly.
“Harassment, including online harassment, of women, is driven by misogyny, fear, and the need for power. Why are women often blamed for moving on from unhealthy relationships with men?”, she continued.
As part of the statement, Van Pelt also alluded to the need for greater artist assistance in the entertainment industry. “Mac Miller’s death from an (alleged) overdose is unfortunate and of his own doing. It had absolutely nothing to do with Ariana Grande. It was not her responsibility to save him in the relationship and it’s not her burden to carry now. The entertainment industry needs to find a way to support victims of drug abuse.”
Exposed to a litany of abuse throughout her career, it’s the public’s traditional philosophies of female duty that continue to hound Grande and the music industry at large. While impetuousness is the primary protagonist in sexist tirades, it’s the age-old belief that woman must serve, and be held accountable for, a certain role that forms the bedrock of misogynism.
Until there’s a dampening of this hot-headedness and women can be freed of their antiquated inflexibilities, sexism will continue to disfigure the music and media industry for years to come.
