This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Henry Ryeder. Find him on Instagram at @henryryeder. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
The 2024 Grammy Awards was a hotbed of headline-generating activity. Rapper Killer Mike won three awards before being arrested and removed from the ceremony after an alleged altercation with staff. Taylor Swift won her fourth award for Album of the Year, Joni Mitchell performed Both Sides Now, a song she won a Grammy for more than fifty years ago, and Annie Lennox used her tribute for Sinéad O’Connor to call for a ceasefire to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Yet the awards show itself wasn’t the only source of drama at the Recording Academy’s annual get together. Following the event, indie-pop darlings boygenius answered press questions following their three award wins. Their trophies for Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song, and Best Alternative Music Album in hand, the trio asked a series of questions, most pertaining to their impending hiatus announced days before. While the three partners, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, had relatively little to say about any upcoming work, Bridgers had a comment lined up when asked about the state of rock music for women.
“The ex-president of the Recording Academy, Neil Portnow, said that if women want to be nominated and win Grammys that they should ‘step up.’ He’s also being accused of sexual violence, so… To him I’d like to say: ‘I know you’re not dead yet, but when you are, rot in piss.’” Standing at Bridgers’s side, Baker was quick to respond, “Pretty rock ’n roll.”
Needless to say, this comment from the most famous member of boygenius, if not the most famous artist in indie pop, quickly went viral. The statement renewed interest in former Recording Academy chief executive Neil Portnow’s comment, as well as his aforementioned allegations of sexual assault.
In 2018, following that year’s Grammy Awards ceremony, Portnow addressed the gender inequity in that year’s awards distribution by claiming that women artists, engineers, producers, and industry executives have to “step up” in order to be recognized. At the time, Portnow’s comments were widely condemned. While he wasn’t forced to resign, Portnow was let go by the Recording Academy at the end of his term in 2019.
Yet last November, serious accusations were leveled against Portnow regarding actions that purportedly took place just months after his notorious Grammies remark. An anonymous music journalist claimed, as plaintiff in an ongoing lawsuit, that Portnow drugged and assaulted her at a hotel in June of 2018.
This allegation was first made public in 2020, but the details that emerged from the lawsuit paint an even more sinister and damning picture of Portnow, the Academy he oversaw, and the industry which allowed him to act with impunity. Any cog in the machine of the Grammies would argue that Portnow was a bad apple, or that the Recording Academy must change executive leadership. Yet as Prof. George Howard of Berklee College of Music asserted at the time of Portnow’s comment, any institution founded on discrimination faces a fatal reckoning.
Lip service executive leadership change did occur in 2020, when Portnow was replaced by Deborah Dugan. I use the term “lip service” not because changes in executive power don’t matter, they most certainly do, but Dugan was terminated just months after her hire. In her own lawsuit leveling wrongful termination against the Academy, Dugan asserted that the institution she briefly oversaw used its power to cover up a range of abuses and scandals, including that of Portnow.
Thus, the “firmament of endemic racism and misogyny”, as Prof. Howard refers to it, is an original sin that can’t be easily extricated, paved over, or forgotten. As evinced by Howard, this isn’t relegated to one form of oppression. Taylor Swift’s fourth Album of the Year win was vocally caveated by many online commentators, who were quick to point out that a Black woman hadn’t won the same honor since Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1999.
And this grossly visible power structure is certainly not exclusive to the music industry. Just last week, an ID docu-series was announced chronicling the tumultuous yet seemingly unstoppable career of Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider. Schneider made a fortune for Nickelodeon thanks to his roster of hit shows through the 1990’s and 2000’s. Yet at every turn, allegations of hostile work environments and sexual predations toward his child actors (both from he and other staffers) bubbled in corners of the then-nascent blogosphere. The series is set to cover at least some of these allegations, while allowing for survivors to tell their stories.
I’ll brazenly break the fourth wall here and say that Schneider is so, disgustingly, obviously guilty of all of these crimes. Yet the cocoon of NDA’s, corporate legal teams, and Hollywood omertá have shielded him thus far. A few years ago, a New York Times interview with Schneider was conducted, amounting to little more than a puff piece. Though writers Julia Jacobs and Matt Stevens obviously pressed as hard to interrogate Schneider as their journalistic code allowed, sources need to go on the record. The decades-long slog leading to the publication of Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s investigation of Harvey Weinstein is evidence of these restraints. While Portnow is at least on his heels in the legal system and in the court of public opinion, Schneider may never be held accountable in any serious way.
A similar, albeit much more complicated, dynamic has emerged in recent years with Michael Jackson’s legacy. Following the release of the devastating HBO documentary Leaving Neverland in 2019, Jackson’s reputation as barrier-breaking multi-generational talent (and the cash cow that came with it) seemed to be on the brink of implosion. Yet the Jackson estate’s multi-million dollar smear campaign against HBO has effectively silenced critical voices, leaving Jackson’s former child victims attempting to revive their case in courts, and discouraging survivors everywhere.
The same can be said for Woody Allen, Johnny Depp, or Win Butler. Yet as Portnow’s case shows, these men, though operating in the highly visible spheres of creative industries, aren’t always household names. And perhaps an even more discomfiting notion is the limitations of advocates to change the systems in which they operate.
The members of boygenius alluded to this conundrum in a recent interview given a few days before the Grammy Awards. As Baker eloquently put it, “It’s always a bit of a double-edged sword, being recognized by an institution… It’s either buying into the values of the music biz or we’re only successful to and for each other.”
Art as a reflection of culture versus its use as an agent of change is a Sontag essay for another day. In their public lives, successful artists face immense inner struggles in reconciling their beliefs with the desire to platform those beliefs. Many a cynic would argue that, under capitalism, that platform commoditizes one’s personhood, hollowing the substance of any political statement. I’d go a step further and contend that in any political system, the want for change and want for recognition often lie in direct opposition.
Yet in total, this sentiment is woefully flattening and fails to capture the nature of work. We aren’t monolithic cultural forces sweeping from one tide of history to another, we’re sloppy, self-absorbed, compassionate people with privileges, disadvantages, and lived experiences that inform all moves we’re able to make. Advocates would likely be able to accomplish more with a hammer and sickle, but ask anyone whose life is dedicated to changing policy, and they’ll probably agree that every mark made with a tiny chisel does count. While this is doubtlessly exhausting, and not merely enough, it’s important to let a good intention be a good intention.
Celebrities speaking out against Hollywood and creative industries is nothing new, but these moments can be useful in gauging social attitudes. Phoebe Bridgers’s statement on Neil Portnow may be a sign of a cultural headwind leaning toward change, or it could be another statement from an influential advocate that tangibly does very little. Odds are it’s probably both.
What do you think of Phoebe’s statement after the Grammy’s? Have you seen other celebrities speaking out against Hollywood? Leave a comment below!
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