The Fame Monster: at the Intersection of Celebrity and Mental Health Advocacy

As someone with mental health issues, I recognize the importance of celebrities advocating for treatment and reducing the stigma surrounding psychiatric illnesses. But lately, I’ve been disenfranchised with stars’ performative acts and at times, downright triggering attempts to shed light on mental illness. Stars tend to forget that they have a larger audience than most. They also may be so coddled in a Hollywood bubble that they lose their sense of reality. Most recently, Lady Gaga released an ad for her cosmetic line, Haus Laboratories, that fashioned eyeliner swatches to look like self-harm scars on the inside of the model’s wrists. Dozens of followers commented that they found the image insensitive and triggering. Without apologizing or even acknowledging the harm caused, Haus Laboratories promptly removed the image from their Instagram. In the past, Lady Gaga has advocated for access to mental health treatment and has opened up about her personal struggles with mental health. She even penned an essay for The Guardian about the urgency of suicide prevention for World Mental Health Day in 2018. Of course, this is not the first incident where Gaga was called out for being insensitive about mental illness, and other celebrities have been just as guilty, but this latest instance reveals a deeper pattern of celebrities claiming to advocate for mental health while causing harm to those struggling.

It may seem contradictory that someone involved in mental health advocacy would fetishize self-harm for the sake of art, and it is, but the nature of “the fame monster” is theatrics. In an ironic twist, Gaga’s social commentary on Hollywood—her invention of “the fame monster” turns on her. She is not immune to the same exploitation she sets out to criticize.

However, Lady Gaga is not the only celebrity to die on that hill. It can be seen from the behaviors of other stars like Halsey who posted a triggering picture of her body at her “lowest point,” while she’s been known to talk candidly about her bipolar disorder, Ed Sheeran who’s opened up about his history of addiction and binge eating, but wrote a song that glamorized anorexia (“Be Like You”), Selena Gomez, who’s spoken about having bipolar disorder, but also produced 13 Reasons Why (which has been hailed as one of the most triggering portrayals of suicide and sexual assault by advocates), and even makeup artist Jeffree Star who’s been open about his own personal struggles with mental health (in fellow YouTuber Shane Dawson’s docuseries), yet dismissive of others by calling them “attention-seeking” among other vicious insults.

The aforementioned celebrities all have multiple things in common: an openness about their own mental well-being, a desire to make “art” out of pain, and normal human flaws exacerbated by the pressures (and shelter) of fame. Most of these celebrities don’t want to be interpreted as insensitive. Selena Gomez probably believed that 13 Reasons Why would start a national conversation about mental health and suicide. And Halsey apologized profusely for triggering her followers, emphasizing that it was never her intention to harm anyone. Good intentions, however, do not lessen the impact of one’s words or actions. These actions beg the questions: where do we draw the line between advocacy, performance, and exploitation? Are celebrities so far removed from the rest of us that they don’t perceive their actions as harmful? How can we ask celebrities to do better without putting them on the defensive?

When it comes to mental health advocacy, good intentions are not enough. Some forms of advocacy do more harm than good just like some forms of art glamorize illnesses instead of bringing awareness to them. The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) has a set of guidelines for guest bloggers to follow to ensure they share their story responsibly. The guidelines include avoiding graphic descriptions, not using numbers to prove the “severity” of a disorder, and not glamorizing the illness. Although NEDA is an organization dedicated to addressing eating disorders, this serves true for all psychiatric illnesses. NEDA created these specific guidelines because of the competitive nature of eating disorders. People with eating disorders tend to compare their behaviors and symptoms to other people’s. There’s a responsible way to discuss mental illness and an irresponsible way. As most celebrities are not licensed mental health professions, they easily teeter towards the irresponsible version. I understand this because at one point, I did too.

In Hollywood, the risk of discussing mental health in a harmful way is exacerbated because the entertainment business breeds drama and fantastical imagery. Celebrities tend to get carried away and forget that their impressive platform comes with weighty responsibility. Since celebrities generally have bigger social media followings, have access to air time, and serve as role models to their young fans, they ought to be more careful. It is also important to recall that celebrities are not authorities on mental health just because they’re eager to advocate.

Sensational depictions of mental illness garner more attention than ones that take into account the safety of one’s audience. It’s tempting to mention how many calories I ate in a day at my sickest or how often I exercised or how often I purged. Not only do these depictions shock readers, but they also validate my disorder. I’m not the only one who’s fell victim to this. Mental health advocate and founder of #BoycottTheBefore, Lexie Manion wrote an essay for Cosmopolitan about her complicated relationship with before-and-after eating disorder pictures. In the essay, Manion explains that when she began documenting her recovery on social media, she posted side-by-side photos that depicted her lowest weight and then her current weight. In retrospect, she admits that in part these posts became about “[proving that she] was once underweight.” She then goes on to explain this mindset saying,

“Many people in recovery from an eating disorder preach that you can’t always see those who are struggling, yet they share photos that limit the idea and visual of who is suffering. They do it I believe because they feel obligated to show their illness to those who do not and cannot understand the depths of it.”

After reflecting on why she felt compelled to post before-and-after pictures, Manion created the #BoycottTheBefore, a social media-based movement that encouraged others to share their experiences with eating disorders without relying on pictures or sizes. Not only does the movement work to eliminate online triggers by discouraging the use of “sick pictures,” but it also reminds us that eating disorders don’t have a “look.” Anyone can have an eating disorder regardless of their size.

Like Manion, many people with eating disorders wrestle with the thought that they were never “sick enough,” that they are a fraud. When this happens, they search for external validation, which can take form as friends voicing their concerns, comments on social media, or the act of simply showing how much their body has changed. Unfortunately eating disorders are still diagnosed by BMI and largely thought of as weight disorders.

I call this the validation paradox; someone struggling with mental illness (namely an eating disorder) feels that they are only worthy of recovery when others acknowledge how severe their illness is. The reason I’m calling it a paradox is that many people who are active in recovery spaces understand that they don’t need validation to “earn” recovery—many even preach this, but it’s easier to dish out advice than to practice it. Manion also mentions that “holding on to before photos is also a way of holding onto the illness,” which is a statement I can relate to. Whenever a friend asks to borrow my phone, I fear that they’ll discover the thousands of “body check” photos I have of myself from when I was sick. I seldom look at these pictures, but knowing I still have them provides a semblance of control—a relic of a past life that I can teleport back to if need be. Deep down I understand the fault in this line of thinking, but like well-intentioned celebrities, I too contradict myself when it comes to mental health. Although I know better, I can’t bring myself to delete these pictures.

Part of me wants to justify the urge to share my story irresponsibly. I majored in Writing during undergrad, and like anyone who’s taken a college-level Writing course, the golden rule of “show don’t tell” was imprinted on me. But I won’t use this as an excuse. “Show don’t tell” has its time and its place. It isn’t for sharing gory details of an illness that could trigger others. It isn’t for making a life-threatening illness artful or romantic. If one must “show” rather than “tell” the details of their mental health journey, they should describe their emotions. What’s beneath the surface is more powerful than behaviors, calorie counts, and scars anyway because emotions are a part of the human experience. They illicit a more human and understanding response rather than a visceral one. Mental illnesses are about emotion anyway. Fortunately, I don’t have an enormous platform, so even when I wasn’t aware that my words and actions could trigger someone else, the extent of my harm never reached very far. However, now that I am older and more informed, I have an obligation to do better.

It is safe to say that at 34 years old, Lady Gaga knows better than to try to make art out of self-harm scars. She isn’t a high school student burning incense in her bedroom writing depressing poems in her diary. She is a grown woman who purports to take mental health seriously. She even attended Julliard—a prestigious school where she was likely taught that such art is juvenile and distasteful. It becomes even more apparent when one keeps in mind that she wrote an essay about suicide prevention in collaboration with a licensed mental health professional three short years ago. So why does she (and other celebrities) continue to talk about mental health in irresponsible ways? She has ample access to information on how to talk about mental health sensitively, yet she continues to stumble in her efforts. How can we hold celebrities accountable without falling back on cancel culture? The answer lies in what might be the most obvious place: we cannot look at celebrities for mental health advocacy.

Most celebrities are a part of the entertainment industry in some capacity. One need not look back to the 1940s and freak shows to understand the exploitative nature of entertainment involving disability and mental illness. As recently as a few weeks ago Haus Laboratories unveiled an advertisement that shamelessly used self-harm as a promotional tool. By the time this article is published, there will undoubtedly be another celebrity exploiting mental illness for likes, financial gain, or publicity.

We cannot rely on an industry that serves to sensationalize stories to provide responsible and realistic mental health advocacy. This isn’t to attack celebrities or accuse them of exploitation—they are victims of the entertainment industry too. They are in a business where people are lauded for “shock-value.”. To be clear, I am not affording them a scapegoat; they are responsible for their own actions, and they must face the backlash. What I am saying is that we are all heavily influenced by external forces. Being that celebrities work in the entertainment industry, we should not look to them for pure advocacy.

Gaga herself has been known to wear over-the-top costumes. It’s not a stretch to say that most of Lady Gaga’s career is reliant on the profane and shocking. Up until recent years, Lady Gaga was seldom seen in a simple outfit; she was known for dressing up as an egg or a slab of meat. For better or worse, that is her legacy: sensational. This is not to criticize her outfit choices, but to show that she’s so accustomed to using over-the-top tactics for the sake of a show that her depiction of self-harm as “artistry” is not surprising. Being that Lady Gaga understands how to garner attention, it’s easy to see how she could cross the line unintentionally. She was accused of glamorizing bulimia after performing with a “vomit artist” in 2014. (If you had to reread that last sentence, there’s no judgment here.) As such, it has always baffled me that Gaga fans hail her a mental health hero.

No matter how “woke” and socially conscious a celebrity may seem, they’re constantly under the pressure of an industry that rewards exploitation and sensationalism. At the end of the day we must realize that celebrities exist within a vacuum of privilege—access to treatment, a much bigger platform and easier access to large publications than most (unlike Gaga, most writers don’t get the opportunity to write for The Guardian), and being largely detached from the bleak realities of the world. With celebrities using their platforms for advocacy, it can be easy to forget that they still hold many privileges that the rest of us can’t dream up. Of course, celebrities still struggle with mental health like everyone else, but their experience is drastically different than the average person’s. We can let celebrities advocate, but we are not obligated to put any weight into what they say, and we should demand better when they inevitably slip up rather than automatically lauding them for their efforts. This is why I advocate for mental health and you should too; those most impacted by the system are the only ones who know how it needs to change. Mental health advocacy is on all of us, not just for those with big follower counts and a national audience.

Sources:

https://www.today.com/popculture/lady-gaga-s-makeup-brand-criticized-triggering-ad-t205811

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/09/lady-gaga-mental-health-global-emergency-suicide

https://www.eonline.com/news/522560/lady-gaga-s-vomit-artist-defends-throwing-up-onstage-my-performance-does-not-promote-eating-disorders

https://pagesix.com/2020/12/29/halsey-apologizes-for-photo-of-her-during-eating-disorder/

https://people.com/health/halsey-committed-twice-manage-bipolar-disorder/

https://www.heart.co.uk/showbiz/celebrities/ed-sheeran-reveals-struggle-with-anxiety/

https://heavy.com/entertainment/justin-bieber/selena-gomez-mental-health-journey/

https://www.seventeen.com/beauty/celeb-beauty/a23722661/jeffree-star-twitter-rant-manny-mua-gutierrez/

https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/community/sharing-your-story-responsibly

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/a9088970/boycott-the-before-photos-neda/

https://www.biography.com/musician/lady-gaga

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/956399/lady-gaga-explains-her-meat-dress-its-no-disrespect