Ariana Grande’s ‘Accidental’ Liz Gillies Kiss Sends Mixed Message To Fans And Media Alike
Ariana Grande kissed a girl – FX’s Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll star Liz Gillies to be exact – and she liked it. But with her “accidental” post to Instagram, the My Everything star is playing a dangerous game that could end up hurting her career in the long run.
It started innocently enough, with Grande and her former Victorious co-star posting a video of the pair puckering up with each other. The ensuing smooch was followed by incessant screaming and hand waving by Ariana and Liz, a comical scene on the surface. And as it usually does, the incident immediately began to trend on social media.
https://instagram.com/p/8fAKWTSWa6/?taken-by=arianagrande
For any other superstar, this kind of media attention would be a welcome sight. But for Ariana Grande, she of the infamous “Donut Licking Incident” from this past summer, this kind of stunt could be seen as a desperate attempt at a comeback in the public’s eye, or at the very least an attention grab to make people forget about her anti-American comments alotogether. The fact that she captioned the pic, “my favorite video of all time @lizgillz. (p.s. this was totally posted by accident ????),” only made it more obvious that it wasn’t an “accident” at all.
Grande isn’t necessarily doing anything that many other famous celebrities haven’t done before as a means to grab the world’s attention or shed the image of being a child star, a title both Ariana and Liz Gillies share on their resumes. As far back as 2003 when Madonna locked lips with both Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera on stage at the MTV VMAs, women have used this kind of notoriety to propel their careers forward.
But in Ariana’s case, this desperate attempt for attention comes in complete contrast to a poignant Twitter post from over the summer that directly called to task a possible bias that women face when being covered by the media at large.
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) June 7, 2015
“I know y’all already know this but the double standard and misogyny are still ever present,” Grande wrote in her tweet blasting the media’s practice of caring more about the sex lives of female celebrities than about the work they’re creating. The incident stemmed from a rumor following Grande’s break-up with Big Sean that she hooked up with another former co-star in Nathan Sykes, as reported by Hollywood Life.
Ariana was then asked during every interview following the first report whether the rumor was true and, if not, who she was dating otherwise. This line of questioning fueled her passionate post-feminist response which netted her big returns from women everywhere.
“I have clearly not been having the boy questions in my interviews lately because I have come to the realization that i have SO. MUCH. MORE. to talk about. I’m currently making the best music I’ve ever made in my life, having the best time of my life on tour with some of the greatest people I’ve ever known, working my a** off every single day, performing / creating for my babes and getting the chance to meet and hug my babes all over the world every day.”
And yet, with a video like this, one could argue Ariana is a hypocrite to her own plea for equality. Especially given her exact choice of words in the original Twitter post.
“If a woman is seen with a friend with a penis,” Grande wrote in her tweet, “there is an immediate assumption of romance or sex and she is labeled!! If a man is seen with a woman…his status is elevated.”
The same elevation could also be applied when a woman kisses another woman, especially when both are young and attractive. The end result? More fuel to the inequality double standard. And that’s something Ariana Grande should have realized when she “accidentally” posted her kiss with Liz Gillies.
[Ariana Grande photo credit by: Tommaso Boddi / Getty Images]
