"Fame vs. Personhood" Profile - Nicki Minaj.

Hello and Welcome to Medi8tor! 

The blog site dedicated to the topic of Fame Management. Fame Management helps individuals in arts and entertainment adjust to the rapid transitions in their personal life, due to the notoriety of their professional life and persona. For more information on Fame Management, please read the previous post, which should answer any questions, you may have. 

Now on to today’s topic, as promised, which will deal with the issue of “Fame vs. Personhood.” 

Fame is defined as having a favorable reputation or widespread influence amongst the masses. 

Personhood is defined as the act or state of being a person. 

Often times when an artist rises to a certain level of fame, their personhood suffers or can get lost as a result. This is rather strange because an artists’ personhood is ultimately tied to their level of fame. Fame can either deify or vilify an artist, and the distinction between the two is concluded based on an artists’ character or personhood. 

As providence would have it, there were two incidents this week, directly from entertainment news to help me illustrate today’s topic. We will only cover one today, I will save the second one for the next post. This first incident involves two of America’s most beloved divas. The first diva is the consummate songstress Mariah Carey, and the other is novice diva Nicki Minaj.

Both women have been selected to be judges of the popular reality show contest, American Idol this season. Earlier this week a video surfaced of the two ladies in the North Carolina auditions engaging in a vicious verbal spat. An infuriated Nicki Minaj can be seen and heard hurling expletives and obscenities at Mariah while Keith Urban who is sitting in between the two women, tries to calm her down. Nicki continues her rant complaining about Mariah’s arrogance in constantly repeating her resume during auditions while Mariah tries to avoid further confrontation, by commenting on Nicki’s behavior as childish and then attempts to continue the audition process. Here is the video obtained by TMZ (http://tmz.me/UwAd2w): 

                                    

The following morning on the daytime talk show “The View,” Barbara Walters who is a good friend of Mariah Carey’s, explains more details and the aftermath of the incident according to Mariah. The most explosive portion of the argument not caught on film is when Nicki exclaimed “ If I had a gun, I would shoot you right now!” Granted, these may have been the infuriated rants of an upset woman, but apparently Mariah has hired a few extra security guards just in case. The women have been in meetings following the argument and release of the video. Nicki has not apologized for what she said, but has said that she loves Mariah but believes they will fight again, to which Mariah strongly disagrees. Here is the video of “The View” episode obtained by World Star Hip Hop via YouTube (http://bit.ly/RKgbh6): 

                                     

         

There are many speculations regarding the nature of the argument, some people whether this was an authentic argument rooted in annoyance or dislike; While others suspect the producers of the show staged the incident to boost ratings for the forthcoming American Idol season. The truth is unknown, and more than likely will never surface but this incident does correlate to our discussion of “Fame and Personhood.” 

The notion of fame is quite easy to factor into this situation. Here are two successful female pop stars who have accomplished success in their own right, made millions of dollars, are considered and respected as experts in their fields, and have the egos to prove it. Mariah and Nicki are equally ego driven, and I bet the producers of American Idol assumed that putting both of these personalities in a room long enough would inevitably cause something to happen. However, the issue of personhood in this matter is quite tricky. For all intents and purposes these women are obviously in touch with their personhood, because they are impassioned and human enough to insult each other across the room. Mariah is obviously personally excited and proud of her accomplishments throughout her career while those accomplishments seem to have a souring and perhaps sobering effect on Nicki whose career is just beginning. Although these women have expressed their personhood, they have neglected the personhood of others who are present and due a certain level of respect based on their levels of fame. 

Did either of these women stop and assess how their behavior was affecting the people around them? Did either of these women identify how their behavior made the contestant feel who was auditioning when the argument erupted? Or how Keith Urban and Randy Jackson felt; were either of them feeling disrespected or embarrassed? What about the director and the crew? How much time and money was lost for the station and the network on production because auditions were cut short that day? How about the many contestants who may have missed their opportunity to audition after they had sacrificed so much to be there? 

Granted, Mariah seemed to understand the effect that her actions were having on others and decided to attempt to diffuse the situation therefore engaging her personhood over her fame, but Nicki seemed to have no disregard for anyone else but herself and her own ego. American Idol is a show that is meant to focus on the gifts and talents of others, and is meant to propel other individuals to a potential life of fame. Instead, this moment of the show became about a diva and a budding diva attempting to trump each other at the expense of other people’s lives and dreams. This is a prime example of what the beast of fame is capable of doing to most people, which is tainting their personhood and making fame and the perks that come with it of utmost importance. 

Mariah may have been operating in arrogance and pride from Nicki’s perspective, and Nicki may have felt justified and righteous in her actions; however, Mariah has paid her dues and is a legend in the music industry. Her fame precedes Nicki’s, and she has maintained a role as a public figure for many years, which makes Nicki’s actions more appalling that she would have the audacity to insult and approach a musical legend in this way, especially being a newcomer in this industry. This incident may reflect badly on Nicki’s reputation, directly impacting her level of fame. In the weeks that follow it will be interesting to see the impact that Nicki’s rant will have in dictating the publics’ opinion of her. If this episode was any indication of Nicki’s true character that is: self-righteous, indignant, arrogant, prideful, while lacking respect for veterans in her field, the public may begin to have a negative perspective of Nicki as a public figure. This could potentially lead the “suits” (executives in the industry) to be cautious when approaching Nicki about other lucrative endorsement deals and hosting contracts, if her reputation as being a loose canon continues. Not to mention I am sure the “suits” at FOX are less than pleased to see their newest celebrity host, on a family oriented show, destroying their brand by going on a tyrannical, expletive laden rant. This could spell trouble for the pop star, and the worst thing in entertainment is to be the beloved pop star that fell from glory. No one knows this journey better than the individual in our next “Fame vs. Personhood” profile, superstar Chris Brown.

The cautionary tale of Nicki Minaj is simple: remain humble, pick your battles, and always show the veterans in your industry utmost respect. As an artist and human being, you are entitled to your opinions, to express your feelings, even to disagree with someone, but act on it in the appropriate place, at the appropriate time, and in the appropriate way. Lastly, once you have achieved success, and reach a certain level of fame try to resist the urge to become arrogant. In the event you are given an incredible opportunity like Nicki Minaj, be respectful of the veterans in your field. These artist have paid their dues, and have paved the way for you to come into the industry. Therefore, their titles and reputations should be respected even when you disagree with them. The audacity to disrespect a veteran in your field only makes you look foolish, and an incident of this nature will vilify you to the public and erode your reputation by exposing your character flaws.

That concludes this post, please join us next time as we continue to discuss “Fame vs. Personhood” and explore the sordid love life of Pop/R&B superstar Chris Brown who is in a love triangle. Chris' love runs on the fuel of his personhood, but is difficult to obtain because of his fame.