Cynthia Erivo on being labeled Ariana Grande’s ‘bodyguard’ during the ‘Wicked’ press tour: “I think that we haven’t really come to terms with the insidious nature of how we view Black women. And I’m sure people will read this and think, ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, it’s not about that.’ But it is.”
Personally didn’t view what happened as anything to do with her physique and her shaved head but I have no doubt there were comments about it because people are dickheads.
Maybe I’m wrong to think it for different reasons but I saw it as an older person being protective of a younger person but I am almost certainly looking at their bond differently to what it actually is.
lovecatsforever on
She’s right. The misogynoir that she experienced throughout the Wicked press tour was reprehensible.
motherofdinos_ on
She’s right about this. People are so weird and hateful about her specifically, and about her and Ariana. I mean Ariana was literally charged aggressively and yet that behavior wasn’t so much the center of conversation as how her friend and costar reacted. Outside of the pop culture subs there was no discussion about how that man had constantly charged female celebrities, only Cynthia was the focus of discussion.
I recall two parallel Reddit posts during that period of the press tour. The first post/posting trend was the video of Cynthia removing Mark Platt’s hand from bizarrely rag-dolling Ariana’s arm. The second post was an old video of Lucille Ball on a talk show. The host was walking through the audience of women and putting his hand on the shoulder of women with whom he was speaking. *Every single time* he did that, Lucille loudly and boldly told him to take his hand off the woman. She did it several times in the span of a few minutes so it was very intentional and conspicuous.
In the Lucille post, people were calling her a badass, brave, heroic, etc. Which is accurate. In the Cynthia/Ariana post, people were calling Cynthia weird, overbearing, aggressive, etc, saying that she was obsessed with Ariana and like a danger to her. Which is not accurate and noticeably different than how site users praised Lucille for doing something similar.
More broadly speaking, I just don’t understand how it was so hard to either ignore their press week content or even watch it agnostically. Erivo and Grande’s Wicked press tour affected nobody’s lives negatively but received so much hate and Cynthia bore the brunt of it.
forkingbumbleforks on
It was absolutely insidious and really racist. The comments I read on multiple platforms were disgusting. Yes Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande had an intense friendship that rubbed people the wrong way, but if they were two white women or two men, then the headlines being pushed out would be very different.
Idkwhattoputbuthi on
And she ain’t wrong. Folks did wayy too Muichiro and it quickly went down the masculizing black women bs
goldfishfancy on
i’m way more of a Cynthia Erivo fan than an Ariana Grande fan so my opinion is probably biased, but I was disgusted that she didn’t get more acclamation for these movies as I thought she was the best part of the movies. She is so extremely talented. I attributed it to her being lesbian first and black as well. People are just awful.
Eunomia28 on
I have been telling people this! It’s exactly why I didn’t find those memes funny.
snapekillshansolo on
I definitely picked up on this as those posts were going around. The Wicked cast was definitely wacky, but I couldn’t help but notice people were definitely exposing their misogyinoir in those comments.
notmakingtherapture on
Not a big fan of hers but I agree. Even if not purposeful there were a lot of jokes made at her expense
knittedbeast on
She’s right, that’s absolutely what it was.
realnymph on
i personally think their friendship is a beautiful and intense thing and also should not belong to the internet people as much as it has been
annnyywhooo on
the amount of racist, misogynistic and just disgusting artwork that people created of cynthia during the wicked 2 press run was awful. and she’s right it got worse after she did a simple thing like…protecting her friend who got ambushed by a crazed fan. and it’s absolutely CRAZY how she was attacked for that more than the guy who assaulted ariana
if you pointed it out most of the response you would get it “they brought it upon themselves” or being gaslit into thinking it’s not that serious. interesting to see the flip now that cynthia herself said she saw all of it and is disappointed
Dssje on
She’s right. It was disgusting misogynoir.
museinprogress on
Both of them were getting trolled for their behaviour but only one of them (the Black woman) got excessive amount of mocking and hate. Of course it has to do with racism even if people won’t admit it.
jessihateseverything on
So she gets shit on because she’s black but didn’t a white girl get a bunch of praise for putting herself between Drew Barrymore and some nutbag? And he wasn’t even close enough to touch her, just yelling in a giant room.
Man, I’m really fucking tired of this timeline.
crumpetsandchai on
Yep. I reckon if she was white she would’ve been considered as so brave and badass.
Not quite related but I remember when Gigi Hadid physically defended herself against that prankster where I’m certain that if she didn’t look more white than Arab, it wouldn’t have gotten much headlines.
theegodmother1999 on
did i get exceptionally weirded out by the entire ari+cynthia press junket? yes. it was too much cringe and theatrical for me to be able to stand it lol.
did cynthia also get totally singled out, bashed with incessant racism, and disgusting levels of misogynoir? absolutely yes without a shadow of a doubt. i personally found ari to be more annoying of the two, and i think it’s fine to think they’re being annoying lol. but i think it’s absolutely ridiculous to think that they DESERVED the level of hatred and misogyny they experienced was justified and not rooted in bigotry.
ThiccQban on
I think it was SZA who brought up the misogynoir at the time. And it’s wild to me to see people even in this thread talking about how it wasn’t actually *that* it was just an older protective woman, or because Cynthia is bigger, or calling it misogyny and ignoring the ‘Noir’ part. Fun fact they are both short (pretty sure Cynthia is even shorter than Ari) grown women in their 30s. But Cynthia was and is consistently portrayed as masculine because she is a black woman.
throwaway182829391 on
i never understood the scrutiny she got for that. cynthia seemed like an absolute badass in that situation! if he man had acted that quickly they’d still be praised for it to this day
KingAltair2255 on
She’s right, I along with i’m sure many other folk thought the way they acted in interviews was a little strange, but the hate they got for it was fucking insane, especially the racist shit Cynthia got. I remember a poorly drawn meme where Arianna was drawn as this tiny, pretty fragile thing and Cyntha was portrayed masculine as fuck looking, muscles, twice her height protecting her.
sundown40 on
Queen.
emptyheadeddumbfuck on
The way people talked about their friendship was 10x more annoying and obnoxious than anything they ever did. Like I would have reacted way worse if any tried harassing my friends??? Why in the world would people turn that into something nefarious
Ok_Rutabaga_5539 on
I’m sorry, but I think it’s weird that people keep mentioning that Cynthia was annoying during the press tour. This post is literally about something far bigger than that. She’s talking about the misogynoir she experienced.
KittyTheCruel on
She is right. And she should say it. Racists are not gonna take it well.tho
24 Comments
Personally didn’t view what happened as anything to do with her physique and her shaved head but I have no doubt there were comments about it because people are dickheads.
Maybe I’m wrong to think it for different reasons but I saw it as an older person being protective of a younger person but I am almost certainly looking at their bond differently to what it actually is.
She’s right. The misogynoir that she experienced throughout the Wicked press tour was reprehensible.
She’s right about this. People are so weird and hateful about her specifically, and about her and Ariana. I mean Ariana was literally charged aggressively and yet that behavior wasn’t so much the center of conversation as how her friend and costar reacted. Outside of the pop culture subs there was no discussion about how that man had constantly charged female celebrities, only Cynthia was the focus of discussion.
I recall two parallel Reddit posts during that period of the press tour. The first post/posting trend was the video of Cynthia removing Mark Platt’s hand from bizarrely rag-dolling Ariana’s arm. The second post was an old video of Lucille Ball on a talk show. The host was walking through the audience of women and putting his hand on the shoulder of women with whom he was speaking. *Every single time* he did that, Lucille loudly and boldly told him to take his hand off the woman. She did it several times in the span of a few minutes so it was very intentional and conspicuous.
In the Lucille post, people were calling her a badass, brave, heroic, etc. Which is accurate. In the Cynthia/Ariana post, people were calling Cynthia weird, overbearing, aggressive, etc, saying that she was obsessed with Ariana and like a danger to her. Which is not accurate and noticeably different than how site users praised Lucille for doing something similar.
More broadly speaking, I just don’t understand how it was so hard to either ignore their press week content or even watch it agnostically. Erivo and Grande’s Wicked press tour affected nobody’s lives negatively but received so much hate and Cynthia bore the brunt of it.
It was absolutely insidious and really racist. The comments I read on multiple platforms were disgusting. Yes Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande had an intense friendship that rubbed people the wrong way, but if they were two white women or two men, then the headlines being pushed out would be very different.
And she ain’t wrong. Folks did wayy too Muichiro and it quickly went down the masculizing black women bs
i’m way more of a Cynthia Erivo fan than an Ariana Grande fan so my opinion is probably biased, but I was disgusted that she didn’t get more acclamation for these movies as I thought she was the best part of the movies. She is so extremely talented. I attributed it to her being lesbian first and black as well. People are just awful.
I have been telling people this! It’s exactly why I didn’t find those memes funny.
I definitely picked up on this as those posts were going around. The Wicked cast was definitely wacky, but I couldn’t help but notice people were definitely exposing their misogyinoir in those comments.
Not a big fan of hers but I agree. Even if not purposeful there were a lot of jokes made at her expense
She’s right, that’s absolutely what it was.
i personally think their friendship is a beautiful and intense thing and also should not belong to the internet people as much as it has been
the amount of racist, misogynistic and just disgusting artwork that people created of cynthia during the wicked 2 press run was awful. and she’s right it got worse after she did a simple thing like…protecting her friend who got ambushed by a crazed fan. and it’s absolutely CRAZY how she was attacked for that more than the guy who assaulted ariana
if you pointed it out most of the response you would get it “they brought it upon themselves” or being gaslit into thinking it’s not that serious. interesting to see the flip now that cynthia herself said she saw all of it and is disappointed
She’s right. It was disgusting misogynoir.
Both of them were getting trolled for their behaviour but only one of them (the Black woman) got excessive amount of mocking and hate. Of course it has to do with racism even if people won’t admit it.
So she gets shit on because she’s black but didn’t a white girl get a bunch of praise for putting herself between Drew Barrymore and some nutbag? And he wasn’t even close enough to touch her, just yelling in a giant room.
Man, I’m really fucking tired of this timeline.
Yep. I reckon if she was white she would’ve been considered as so brave and badass.
Not quite related but I remember when Gigi Hadid physically defended herself against that prankster where I’m certain that if she didn’t look more white than Arab, it wouldn’t have gotten much headlines.
did i get exceptionally weirded out by the entire ari+cynthia press junket? yes. it was too much cringe and theatrical for me to be able to stand it lol.
did cynthia also get totally singled out, bashed with incessant racism, and disgusting levels of misogynoir? absolutely yes without a shadow of a doubt. i personally found ari to be more annoying of the two, and i think it’s fine to think they’re being annoying lol. but i think it’s absolutely ridiculous to think that they DESERVED the level of hatred and misogyny they experienced was justified and not rooted in bigotry.
I think it was SZA who brought up the misogynoir at the time. And it’s wild to me to see people even in this thread talking about how it wasn’t actually *that* it was just an older protective woman, or because Cynthia is bigger, or calling it misogyny and ignoring the ‘Noir’ part. Fun fact they are both short (pretty sure Cynthia is even shorter than Ari) grown women in their 30s. But Cynthia was and is consistently portrayed as masculine because she is a black woman.
i never understood the scrutiny she got for that. cynthia seemed like an absolute badass in that situation! if he man had acted that quickly they’d still be praised for it to this day
She’s right, I along with i’m sure many other folk thought the way they acted in interviews was a little strange, but the hate they got for it was fucking insane, especially the racist shit Cynthia got. I remember a poorly drawn meme where Arianna was drawn as this tiny, pretty fragile thing and Cyntha was portrayed masculine as fuck looking, muscles, twice her height protecting her.
Queen.
The way people talked about their friendship was 10x more annoying and obnoxious than anything they ever did. Like I would have reacted way worse if any tried harassing my friends??? Why in the world would people turn that into something nefarious
I’m sorry, but I think it’s weird that people keep mentioning that Cynthia was annoying during the press tour. This post is literally about something far bigger than that. She’s talking about the misogynoir she experienced.
She is right. And she should say it. Racists are not gonna take it well.tho