Sasha Andresier
Do Mum and Dad have “friends in the business”? Does your name gain you opportunities otherwise exclusive to those who worked hard for the opportunity? Has anyone you’ve ever met been loosely associated with the field of work you want to go in to?
IT SEEMS FAME BEGETS FAME
If the answer to any of the above is yes, you will quickly learn what it means to be branded a “nepo-baby” and the ridicule that comes along with it. “Nepo” (short for nepotism) “baby”, simply put, references the access to opportunities given to the children of people already successful in the field. Of course, for some this term simply rings true. Celebrities like Lily-Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis) and Maude Apatow (daughter of Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann) are repeatedly marked out online for being the children of other famous people. It seems fame begets fame and the children of famous people are born with the exponential likelihood of wanting to pursue a career in show business and the incredible fortune of being granted success in the field. All pure coincidence I’m sure.
Then come the outlier cases. People who are loosely associated with fame- maybe its not a famous parent but a distant relative or friend of a friend- maybe even you yourself suit this category. Are these people nepo babies too? We might find one such case in Lola Young- a singer of newfound fame who’s hit single ‘Messy’ has just reached its second week at number one in the UK. And as you may be able to predict, with newfound fame comes early nepo-baby allegations. The cause? Her Aunt, Julia Donaldson, wrote ‘The Gruffalo’, a children’s book from 1999, a fact that has been the subject of much online debate surrounding the legitimacy of Young’s fame. As one tweet states:
‘Feel like [Lola Young] appeared out of nowhere in the past few months so I had a Google. Her Auntie wrote ‘The Gruffalo’ and she went to the BRIT school. LOL. Same as it ever was.’
THE INDUSTRY’S HARSH TREATMENT OF WOMEN AND THE WILLINGNESS OF OUR SOCIETY TO INDISCREETLY DISQUALIFY THE HARD WORK OF WOMEN BOTH RING TRUE
With leniency in mind, I empathise with the tweeter’s frustration, as well as the shared frustration of the fifty-six thousand people that liked that tweet, that nepotism skews the playing field and very often “new” celebrities will be found to have close links to the industry. But, as has been pointed out by many, Young’s success is not instantaneous nor purely incidental. Young has been competing in, and winning, open mic competitions from as young as 15 and got into the BRIT school as a result of these successes. What may seem to be appearing ‘out of nowhere’ is actually a reflection of a personal ignorance about artists who aren’t internationally famous and revered. And these assertions are not uncommon; Charli XCX was accused of being an ‘industry plant’ by one tweeter after Spotify named her song ‘360’ the ‘Best Hit Song of 2024’. Whether you like the song or not, it is pretty contrived to suggest that Grammy winner Charli XCX is an industry plant after over a decade in the business. While male nepo babies do exist (Ben Platt and Jaden Smith spring to mind), the label remarkably seems to be female-oriented. In a Cosmopolitan article titled ‘82 celebs you didn’t know are nepo babies’, only 29 of them are men. To this disparity there is no clear answer, only the opportunity for speculation, covered here by Impact’s own Emma Burnett. However the industry’s harsh treatment of women and the willingness of our society to indiscreetly disqualify the hard work of women both ring true. For Charli XCX especially these allegations must sting- how much more must she do for her success to be validated?
THE HOLLYWOOD INDUSTRY CAN NEVER BE MISTAKEN FOR A MERITOCRACY
Alongside this discourse there is an undeniable reality: that the Hollywood industry can never be mistaken for a meritocracy. The term ‘nepo baby’, and its brandishing, is a mark of our modern distaste for those who just get things too easily. A symptom of this online discourse is the celebrities that attempt to take part in the joke and accidentally glorify the label itself. Hailey Bieber was spotted in t-shirt branded with “nepo-baby” in a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of her own status as the child of celebrity parents. The approach by many others is to take the label with humility – to acknowledge their privilege and accept the criticism that come along with it. Bieber’s ironic approach, while has been deemed as ‘iconic’, is blissfully ignorant to the social point that is being made. Perhaps, for the Biebers’ this top can be kept as a family heirloom, to be passed onto their inevitably successful children.
It is a truth of the Hollywood industry that famous parents very often provide a red-carpet lined road to success for their children and while a great many of these children possess extreme talent and probably deserve celebrity in their own right, it might often be the case that this success is undeserved. Lily Rose Depp might have made quite an excellent solicitor and Iris Apatow might have been destined to change lives teaching maths, but due to their parent’s success their easiest route to a career was through the nepotistic network of Hollywood. A similar truth is that people who desire and labour to be part of this industry but do not posses these familial connections, are disallowed entry into Hollywood all because of the industry favours a well-known name.
THE DISPARITY IS REAL- AND GLARING, AND UNDENIABLY NEPOTISM CAUSES MORE HARM THAN GOOD
The disparity is real – and glaring, and undeniably nepotism causes more harm than good. For every Timothée Chalamet there are at least a few Kardashians who are simply famous for being famous. We hunt these people down in order to undermine their success, and often, we get it wrong, but this is only a natural response to seeing injustice in our everyday lives. However I must acknowledge that as I am come to the end of my final year of my beloved Philosophy and Theology degree, if my parents offered me a well-paid, stable job I would gladly take it. Hailey Bieber, I need to borrow your t-shirt.
Sasha Andresier
Featured image courtesy of Venti Views via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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