Dealing with insecurities: the "Famous" controversy
Rapper DDG just released the track "Famous" in which he expresses his insecurities over his girlfriend's on screen romance in "The Little Mermaid". But, shouldn't men showing vulnerabilities be a good thing? Here's a deeper look at why he's receiving backlash, and what we can learn from it all.
In case you haven’t heard, rapper DDG has been making waves online due to his latest track, Famous, in which he seems to shade his Hollywood star girlfriend, Halle Bailey.
In the song, the actress is repeatedly called out for activities that her job requires, such as on-screen kissing her character’s love interest (“Filming a movie now you kissing dudes”). The rapper goes as far as implying she might be cheating on him (“I be thinking you really be fucking niggas”), and straight-out admitting to using tweets to sabotage her career (“I might tweet somethin’ just to ruin it, I got a platform I’m abusin’ it”). Which DDG was actually caught doing during The Little Mermaid promotional campaign.
"DDG is just being vulnerable and real"
As one can imagine, the song has received tons of backlash, especially from Halle Bailey’s fans, who saw it as another instance of DDG publicly humiliating his girlfriend and once more capitalizing from controversy at her expense.
On the other hand, DDG responded to critics by reminding people it’s “just a song”, while his fans praised him for allowing himself to be “vulnerable” and exposing his insecurities.
And isn’t that actually a good thing? After all, being vulnerable not only fosters good emotional and mental health but also helps grow a relationship, building intimacy and trust. Also, openly acknowledging and expressing your insecurities is the first step to coping with them, and also to build a more sincere relationship with your partner.
And it's much harder for men since there is this cultural pressure for them to reject or hide their own vulnerabilities and insecurities. In that sense, DDG raping about “feeling so insecure” is quite frankly kind of brave of him — except, if you take a deeper look, there are a lot of problems with how these feelings are understood and expressed.
Right off the bat, we could discuss the fact that this private issue is made very public (and monetized). DDG has been compared to Keke Palmer’s partner, who recently publicly shamed her for wearing a sheer black dress to an Usher concert. In both instances, men condemned their partner’s behavior in a very public way, instead of privately talking to them about how they felt. It must be noted that both women being shamed are public figures, and their careers depend on their reputations.
The similarities don't stop there. In both cases, the main focus is on shaming the behavior of women. Even though DDG acknowledges his insecurities, they aren't portrayed as his own issue, but rather as if Bailey and her behavior were responsible for making him feel insecure. In other words, he makes it seem like he's insecure not because he has confidence and trust issues, but because her actions were shameful.
Here’s the thing: we should earnestly share our insecurities and fears with our partners. Then, as a couple, we can talk about boundaries and things that we are and aren’t comfortable with. But, at the end of the day, we can’t expect our partners to be responsible for solving all of our insecurities. Especially in this case, when they stem from said partner simply doing their job.
Unfortunately, using otherwise healthy relationship habits to mask shady attitudes has become a common theme. Look no further than the whole Jonah Hill scandal, and how he wrongly presented controlling behavior as "boundaries".
Communicating is not the same as demanding, and relationships shouldn'’ be built on controlling or manipulating your partner into acting the way you want them to.
Famous
If you look closely at the lyrics of the controversial song, it feels like the roots of DDG’s insecurities aren’t Bailey’s behaviors, but rather her fame and success. No wonder the track is named “Famous”, and one of the most catchy lines in the chorus goes “Hardest thing I did was fall in love with a famous bitch”. The rapper doesn't seem as heartbroken with the possibility of his girlfriend cheating on him as he does with her being more famous and successful than him.
“Famous” came out at the exact moment when Halle Bailey’s career is peaking, with her achieving Disney princess fame as The Little Mermaid and as the star in the soon-to-be-released The Color Purple. In the lyrics, the rapper vilifies his girlfriend for simply doing her job and belittles her constantly (in lines such as “They just want you cause you got a name / And because you the girl that I claim”). He seems unable to celebrate her success, instead feeling that if she grows, it will make him look smaller by comparison. A logic that, unfortunately, is all too common in heterosexual relationships.
A study from 2013 asked 30 couples to take a test to measure their intelligence. These tests weren’t actually graded, but each participant was told that their partner scored in either the top or bottom 12%. And, guess what: men who were told that their female partners had scored in the top 12% scored lower on a self-esteem test. In other words, knowing their female partners were smart made these men feel worse about themselves.
In this same study, 284 men were told to recall a time when their female partners were successful, and then take a self-esteem test. This showed that regardless of the type of success the woman had — be it professional, social, or intellectual — it tended to hurt her partner’s self-esteem.
From his past antics, one could argue that DDG is just using his girlfriend’s spotlight to stir up some controversy and gain some attention. Most of his career has been built on gaining clout from online haters, feeding in on beefs with other rappers, and making controversial remarks. Even if that’s the case, he’s still shifting the attention she earned through her hard work and talent to himself and exposing her in the process, which is very telling of how he deals with her success.
I won’t pretend to know these individuals or the particulars of their relationship, and although I am using this situation as an example, I am aware that as an outsider I'll never actually know what goes on between them, and am not entitled to decide what is best for either of them when it comes to their relationship. Demanding Bailey to break up with her boyfriend is, ironically, somewhat controlling and condescending.
What we can do is learn from the bits of information that we have, and use this kind of situation to reflect on how we handle our own vulnerabilities and improve the way we communicate with the ones we love. Insecurity and jealousy are natural human emotions, and we all feel them from time to time. That doesn't make anyone a bad partner. The thing is that we have a choice as to how we deal with our emotions, and that makes all the difference.
