Earlier this summer, former Nickelodeon actress turned pop/R&B singer Ariana Grande nearly topped the charts with her catchy throwback hit “Problem.” And after reviewing the 21-year-old entertainer’s second album, My Everything, I’m sad to say that Ariana’s got more problems than just the addictive-but-dysfunctional guy she’s trying to offload in that song. And they’re the kind of problems that are significant enough to warrant a detailed examination in this post, because they’re representative of important trends shaping the lives and choices of young people today.
And, unfortunately, they’re all things we’ve seen before.
One of the most saddening, maddeningly predictable aspects of my job is watching the budding careers of adolescent stars soar into the stratosphere … then plunge into racy, risqué territory when they exit their teen years and begin the tricky transition into being an “adult” entertainer. Virtually without exception in the last 15 years or so—and quite frequently in the decades before that timeframe—these one-time adolescent entertainers feel the need to trade their typically wholesome, relatively innocent image for something outright tawdry.
The depth and speed of that descent into sexually explicit material varies. But with occasional exceptions (Taylor Swift and Kelly Clarkson come to mind), sometimes it seems like that’s what happens to almost all the rest: Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Hilary Duff, Joe Jonas, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and the list goes on. It doesn’t seem to make any difference how much they talk in interviews about subjects like virginity and Jesus, making good choices, and being a good role model. For all of the artists in that quick list (and so many more, too), the end point has been—in the most simple, common denominator term—singing about sex. Often in graphic, lurid and reckless ways. It reminds me of the ominous promise made by the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation: “You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”
Even knowing the black-hole-like pull of that trend, however, I find myself irrationally hoping against hope that each new star will be the one to rewrite that script, evading the assimilation that seems to ensnare them all. Alas, it’s a fool’s hope.
Which brings us to Ariana Grande … and the most recent iteration.
When Grande’s debut album Yours Truly came out last September, some commentators proclaimed her a more conservative and chaste alternative to Miley Cyrus (whose career at that point was veering in an ever more sensationalized and sensual direction.) Admittedly, those folks didn’t look too carefully at Grande’s lyrics, because even a year ago there were some obvious sexual references.
Even with those allusions to intimacy, however, I was a bit taken aback at how racy the content on Grande’s second effort, My Everything, actually is.
I won’t go into all the nitty-gritty details here that my review does. But I think it’s worth mentioning a few lines, just for context. On “Be My Baby,” for example, Grande brazenly tells a would-be beau that if he wants to be her man, he’s got to prove himself sexually first. In essence she says she’s only interested in romance if he’s good in bed: “If you know how to be my lover,” she sings, “Maybe you can be my baby.”
The message Grande sends her legion of tween and teen Sam & Cat fans? That sex is what really matters—not love, commitment or integrity. In fact, she suggests that sex is so important that it has to come first.
I wish that were the only problem here. But it’s just one of 12 tracks experimenting with similarly dangerous and degrading messages. “Love Me Harder” includes sexually explicit lyrics too provocative for Plugged In to print verbatim, as does “Hands on Me,” where Grande comments on her lover’s aroused anatomy.
The sexual content here is reckless enough on its own. But Grande then goes on to pair it with unhealthy stories about emotionally dysfunctional relationships, too. On “Why Try,” she says of a relationship, “I’m loving the pain/ … Even when you’re yelling at me/I still think you’re beautiful.” And “Just a Little Bit of Your Heart” flirts with the darkness of some of Lana Del Rey’s grim subject matter. Here, Grande sings about staying with a guy she knows is cheating on her. But she’s convinced herself that even the leftover crumbs of “love” he offers her are more than enough to sustain her affection-famished heart. Here are her words: “I know I’m not your only/But at least I’m one/I heard a little love/Is better than none.”
The lesson for young fans? Staying with verbally abusive, cheating partners is better than nothing. And when those kinds of bad examples get yoked to Grande’s other songs, singing the praises of consequence-free promiscuity, the result is double-barrel damage to any young listener who might be inclined to imitate her idol.
Even knowing the trajectory young stars usually take these days, I simply wasn’t prepared for how far and how fast Ariana Grande really has been assimilated by the system. Which brings me to my next point: It is a system. Disney and Nickelodeon know how to groom young talent. And when the time comes, there’s a veritable pop-culture industrial complex of writers, producers and musicians waiting to propel young stars in a more racy direction.
Let me expand on that. After parsing the lyrics and messages on My Everything, I was really curious whether this racy material was something Ariana wrote herself. In other words, is this her vision of adulthood? Or someone else’s?
Eager Wikipedia contributors have already posted the songwriting and production credits for each track on the album. And guess what? Even accepting the possibility that a few errors lurk in the list, it’s more than clear that the songs were written almost entirely by men—and men significantly older than Ariana Grande. Hitmaker extraordinaire Max Martin—who’s more than twice as old as Grande at 43—was one of six men who wrote the borderline pornographic “Love Me Harder,” for instance. Grande only gets partial writing credits on four songs.
Does that creep you out at all? That middle-aged men are writing sexy-sleazy lyrics for a 21-year-old young woman to sing? It does me. And I can’t help but wonder what goes through Ariana’s head when she’s singing songs about wanting sex to be “harder” … among other crude and caustic moments. We’ll probably never know if it makes her feel queasy or uncomfortable, whether she feels any qualms or believes she has any say in how risqué her own material is.
“You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.” Indeed.
That said, at the end of the day Grande did choose to sing these songs—whether it was out of personal approval or the perception that she just had to do it to take her career to the so-called “next level.” And she does have to own them. Because I suspect most of her fans won’t stop to consider that this album’s eroticized messages weren’t, for the most part, written by their idol. Instead, they’ll likely believe that these messages about sexuality are what she really values, what she thinks is important and what she would say is a good way to live. And those fans may very well imitate her choices in their own lives (just as I wrote about last week in my blog about what researchers are discovering about the risky choices made by young women who read Fifty Shades of Grey).
Still, I’m certain my growing concern about Ariana Grande’s negative influence on young fans might be met with derision in less socially and spiritually conservative environments. Because increasingly we hear messages about the importance of being “sex positive,” which essentially means affirming any and all sexual activities among teens—as long as contraception is used. To suggest that Ariana Grande is making poor choices here, some would say, isn’t helpful and isn’t dealing with the reality of teen sexual activity today.
Ever more liberal cultural standards about sexuality notwithstanding, however, I think it’s worth considering whether the sexual mores Grande embraces are really the ones young women should be emulating. Do we really want to see, for example, our own daughters jump into a sexual relationship to “try on” whether they’ve got chemistry with a guy? Do we want them to resign themselves to verbally abusive partnerships? To stay with guys they know are cheating on them?
Even if you don’t subscribe to an ethic shaped by a Christian understanding of sex’s purpose and place in our lives, I’d like to think we can agree that Grande proffers some pretty dangerous suggestions here, attitudes that could be deeply damaging to young fans.
To push this blog one philosophical and theological step deeper before I wrap it up, I’d like to suggest that cultural influencers such as Ariana Grande challenge us to consider what we really do believe, and why, when it comes to important issues such as sexual expression.
Scripture shows us that God’s gift of sexuality to humanity serves to deepen the intimacy and commitment between a man and a woman in marriage, a union that reflects His image and results in new life. Our culture, in stark contrast, is trying to convince us that our sexuality is ours to do with as we please for the sake of our own pleasure, and that no one has a right to question those choices.
Grande’s music clearly represents the latter view. The question of how that influences her myriad fans and followers is one we would do well to grapple with seriously.
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