Opinion | The Midwestern Princess versus the paparazzi

If you haven’t been on social media in the last 6 months, let me grace you with the newest musical phenomenon — Chappell Roan. America’s newest pop princess has quickly risen to fame in the last year, thanks in large part to social media. This midwestern princess has taken everyone by storm from performing at Coachella, Lollapalooza and now at the Video Music Awards. 

Her VMAs performance was notability one of the best I’ve seen in a long time. She was Joan of Arc in a suit of armor, performing in front of literal fire — everything was amazing. That night, she also won the Best New Artist award, only further proving that Roan deserves all the praise for her singing, songwriting and performing skills.

After having an incredible night, you would think that everyone would be talking about Roan positively. You’d be wrong. Instead of headlines about her phenomenal performance or her win, many were talking about how she spoke to a photographer on the red carpet earlier that night. While doing the traditional photo ops, a photographer told her to “Shut the f— up,” and Roan clapped back by saying “You shut the f— up.” 

For some reason, this sent some people into a rage. What I don’t understand is why are people mad at Roan when they should be mad at the photographer for being incredibly rude to her. That photographer had no business being so disrespectful to her, and it is mind-boggling to me why they even said that to her, period. 

This also brings up the fact that photographers and paparazzi are constantly rude to celebrities. Oftentimes they are aggressive, constantly invading peoples’ privacy and blatantly harassing celebrities simply to get a trending photo. People in this business lack an understanding that there should be boundaries even when it comes to photographing public figures. 

The interaction between Roan and this photographer isn’t the first time the paparazzi overstepped their boundaries, and it certainly won’t be the last. Britney Spears was a victim of the paparazzi during her prime, as they would track her every move, which led to her shattering the car windows of the paps and ended with her going into rehab. There’s also the time when a paparazzi caused a car accident with Lindsey Lohan after they were following her. Perhaps most notably, Princess Diana died because she was being chased by the paparazzi. 

All of these awful situations happened because paparazzi often are relentless and will do whatever it takes to capture the moment. The difference between these other incidents and what happened with Roan is that she is standing up for herself — which she does constantly and unapologetically.

I think this is what makes people online so mad. She doesn’t take any disrespect to herself just because it’s the norm — she wants people to understand that they can’t treat her however they want to, how they’ve treated celebrities of the past. 

I also believe that this massive wave of hate towards Roan is another worryingly common case of misogyny that is constantly overlooked in the media. If a man were to tell a photographer on the red carpet to shut the f— up, this wouldn’t be as big of a deal as people are making it.

Celebrities like Kanye West stand up to the paparazzi and no one ever pays much attention. But suddenly when a woman decides to tell a photographer off, all hell breaks loose. 

Due to her sudden rise in fame, it has probably been incredibly hard for Roan to adapt to her new life. There’s no book or set of instructions that tells you how to handle fame and all of the negative and positive things that come with it. So far, I think that Roan has done an incredible job in trying to set boundaries when it comes to both the paparazzi and fans alike. 

Just about a month ago, Roan took to TikTok with a rant about how fans were violating her privacy and how uncomfortable it made her. Once again, these videos caused some people to say that Roan was ungrateful — that her fans were the ones who made her famous and the least she could do was take a picture with them. While people may think this makes Roan seem like a stuck-up celebrity, this is just an example of a normal person trying to set boundaries. 

Most people who say rude things about her online are only saying them because they will never be able to understand what she’s going through. They’ll never have to experience being stalked by fans, having random people come up to them asking for pictures or being cursed at by paparazzi on a red carpet. Social media makes people think that they’re entitled to talk about and criticize people’s decisions when they’ll never experience those same things. Because of the use of social media, people develop parasocial relationships with celebrities and think that their unwanted opinions are valuable to them when in reality they most certainly are not. 

Regardless of her celebrity status, we should all treat Roan with respect. At the end of the day, she’s a 26-year-old still figuring herself out while she navigates her new life as a celebrity. The media, and people on social media, shouldn’t try to shame her into thinking that standing up for herself is a bad thing. We should be praising her for speaking out and trying to empathize with her. 

Danae Poteat writes primarily about pop culture and current events. Write to her at dmp152@pitt.edu.