Phoebe Bridgers Was Named One of Time’s Women of the Year. And It’s A Problem.
Phoebe Bridgers, popular indie singer, has been named one of Time’s women of the year, and it has rubbed people up the wrong way.
“The world just keeps opening up for me.”
Regardless of whether or not having an entire category dedicated to glorifying overprivileged women in the entertainment industry is self-serving and insensitive, the 2020s has continued to show us that the truth truly doesn’t matter when it comes to Hollywood.
Bridgers has continued to make occasional headlines over the past 18 months due to her advocacy and strong opinions on the Supreme Court and abortion rights, as well as being announced as a supporting artist for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour. Whilst this is all well and good and may give her a boost in popularity, large media outlets are failing to acknowledge issues below the surface.
In Rolling Stone’s article about Bridgers’ new title, her feud with ex-boyfriend Ryan Adams is mentioned, calling it an “emotionally abusive relationship”, but then also goes into how he gave Bridgers “life-changing advice”.
“Strangely, well, not strangely — life is complex — Ryan Adams sent me a really long email once about how I needed to write the truth, because it’s the only thing that’s interesting about me,” Bridgers says. “The more honest I am, the world just keeps opening up for me.”
So… let’s discuss.
I won’t speak too much about the feud between the two artists itself, but I will talk about what bigger media outlets won’t mention. It seems the world, particularly the media, ignores the nuances of these celebrity feuds and immediately picks the side of the woman. Ironically, as the years go by, women have actually become more powerful and more infantilised all at the same time.
People won’t, and don’t, like to admit this: in the western world, women in the 2020s have more power and privilege than a lot of men.
This is not a gender battle; I am not interested in having the conversation of sexism and misogyny, because it truly disinterests me. What I am interested in, however, is justice and equality for all.
Rolling Stone fails to mention that Phoebe Bridgers was actually sued back in 2021 by Ryan Adams for defamation, but was dropped in November of 2022 due to the anti-SLAPP laws that protected her Instagram statement, where she accused Adams of emotional abuse and sexual coercion, as free speech.
Bridgers has a history of inserting herself where she doesn’t belong for her own personal gain. Another mediocre talent that thinks being a victim is a career path.
Bridgers has also made aloof and vague accusations against Marilyn Manson during the period of which women were flocking from all corners of the internet to get their fifteen minutes — and also, coincidentally, 3 days after Manson’s former fiancé Evan Rachel Wood, dropped her own Instagram statement accusing him of grooming her (even though she was 19) and sexually abusing her for years.
“He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years,” Wood wrote on Instagram. “I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives. I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.” — Evan Rachel Wood via Instagram, Feb 1 2021.
Other women accusing Manson of misconduct include Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco, Manson’s former assisstant Ashley Walters, and model Ashley Morgan Smithline. All three’s lawsuits are now inactive, with the first being settled and the former two being dismissed (and not by a technicality/anti-SLAPP law). However, Smithline, as of February of 2023, has signed a sworn statement for Manson’s attorney Howard King, stating that she felt she was “manipulated” by Wood and Illma Gore (Wood’s ex partner and co-conspirator) to make false allegations against the singer.
“I succumbed to pressure from Evan Rachel Wood and her associates to make accusations of rape and assault against [Manson] that were not true,” she wrote in the declaration, as seen by People.
Manson has always remained true to his word that though he has had sexual encounters with most of the women that made allegations, his endeavours have always been 100% consensual, calling them “horrible distortions of reality.”
“My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”
Phoebe Bridgers hopped on the bandwagon on February 4th, claiming she visited Manson’s home as a teenager and he “referred to a room in his house as the “rape room”” and proceeded to say she stood with everyone who came forward. This was through a post on Twitter. Not anywhere else. Just Twitter. Twitter is the breeding ground for radicalism, particularly radical feminism, so it make sense she would post a vague and rather pointless accusation on there, knowing the response she would gauge from it.
Regardless of that, she never provided any proof that she did in fact visit Manson’s house as a teenager. It’s literally her word against his. We are not obliged to believe her because she’s a woman. That’s ridiculous. We can have our own opinions, because that’s what makes us human.
Anyway, my point is that Bridgers is problematic. Not 2012 problematic, in that she tweeted something ten years ago and it’s biting her in the backside today. No, 2023 problematic: she utilises her power as a famous woman to make allegations and statements on a surface level that gets her headlines and attention from the media. Because that’s what the media likes to do now: promote women out of fear of backlash from hardcore feminists that threaten peoples’ livelihoods because they don’t think the same way they do.
I am not denying that she’s encountered dodgy people in the entertainment industry; there’s dodgy people everywhere. However, there is a victim mentality that’s embedded into women, particularly of the millennial and gen-z population, that tells them that it’s never their fault and that all men are predatory.
Her claiming that “the world just keeps opening up” for her is another way of saying that the more she can skew her past experiences to fit this new victim narrative that the media promotes, the more opportunities she can gather for her career.
I’m not even entirely blaming her for her utilization of the media and the Hollywood circus. Perhaps we should be blaming the media for glorifying the infantilization of women.
