Is Chappell Roan’s Real Crime Being A Woman With Boundaries?
(Photo by Christopher Polk/Billboard via Getty Images)
It’s been just over a week since Brazilian soccer player Jorghino Frello took to his Instagram to blast singer Chappell Roan. Frello was incensed over an incident in which his wife and 11-year-old stepdaughter were allegedly scolded by a security guard who objected to the tween walking by the singer as she ate breakfast at a posh hotel in São Paulo.
Frello chose to call Roan out for the incident, telling her she’s “nothing without her fans.”
The next day the Saskatchewan superfan and ”Pink Pony Club“ singer responded. In a video, she shared she had no idea the incident had taken place and said the security guard wasn't part of her personal team. She also expressed regret for the experience of both mother and child.
"You did not deserve that," she said.
It's clear Roan didn’t deserve being roughed up online either. (The mayor of Rio was so incensed he said he would ban the performer from a May music festival that she was never slated to perform at in the first place.) The security guard in question has subsequently spoke out online, confirming he wasn’t part of Roan’s personal security team and took full responsibility for the “regretful” interaction.
So why has Roan been labelled an entitled meanie?
The Good Place actor Jameela Jamil, who is no stranger to online furor, has a theory. She thinks it’s rooted in punishing the openly queer singer for her personal and political outspokenness—and for being a woman with boundaries.
In a sarcasm-laced Instagram post, Jamil went all in on “agreeing” with the hate directed at Roan.
“None of this media fueled hate is whipped up smear campaign,” Jamil wrote “…this is not to send a warning to other women to not try being outspoken and disobedient. Women are not supposed to have boundaries ever. We are just supposed to smile.”
It wasn’t lost on Jamil that as Roan was being shredded online for something she didn’t do, actor Shia LaBeouf was getting a collective shrug for screaming at a woman who was sitting near him at an outdoor café in Italy. That incident, which was captured on video, was picked up by tabloids but didn’t generate a week-long takedown cycle.
It’s hard not to punch the repost button on Jamil’s line of thinking—many, including Courtney Love did. Even better, Jamil made her point with a sense of humour, too.
She appended her defence of Roan with a self-deprecating meme:
“It gets worse Jameela Jamil just defended you.”
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Flannery Dean is a writer based in Hamilton, Ont. She’s written for The Narwhal, the Globe and Mail and The Guardian.
