This is not funny.
I don’t know who needs to hear that. I just know that I need to say it.
Not only is it not funny, it’s also not a “celebrity feud,” a “hot topic” or however else you care to characterize meaningless ephemera from the world of the rich and famous. No, what this is, folks, is a crime in progress.
I’m talking about Kanye West, something I generally try to avoid. It will not surprise you that I’m not one of the rapper’s fans (yes, he’s asked that we henceforth call him Ye, and no, that won’t be happening here). His well-publicized mental health issues aside, West has long struck me as a not-particularly-bright man with a surfeit of self-regard and a deficit of basic home training. President Obama famously called him a “jackass.” The president was being kind.
But in recent weeks, West has struck new lows, even for him. The reference is to his erratic behavior as his marriage to Kim Kardashian disintegrated on the public stage. West has zinged from begging for reconciliation on social media to parading around with a lookalike of his estranged wife. More ominously, he has trolled Kardashian online while relentlessly threatening her new boyfriend, “Saturday Night Live” cast member Pete Davidson.
In one song, he vows to put Davidson’s “security at risk.” In another, he raps about “a hundred goons pullin’ up to SNL.” There’s the lyric where he says, “God saved me from that crash, just so I can beat Pete Davidson’s ass.” He asked fans to chant “KimYe forever!” when they see Davidson, whom he has dubbed “Skete,” in public.
It got bad enough that Kardashian texted West asking him to lay off, telling him that he is creating a dangerous situation. He responded to the private plea via Instagram: “UPON MY WIFE’S REQUEST PLEASE NOBODY DO ANYTHING PHYSICAL TO SKETE IM GOING TO HANDLE THE SITUATION MYSELF.” And he continues to misbehave. Last week, on the very day the divorce became final, he released a video in which his animated doppelganger kidnaps Davidson and buries him alive.
Maybe you’re tempted to write it off as the usual celebrity nonsense. But these people are being stalked and threatened by an obsessive ex in real time, in real life, before our very eyes. In other words, it’s not nonsense; it’s a crime. Kanye West, for all his accolades and acclamation, is revealed as just another possessive, weak-minded man who can’t take no for an answer. And Kim Kardashian finds that not all her wealth and fame are enough to insulate her from what less celebrated women endure.
If this was happening to your neighbor, you’d have made her call the cops a long time ago. But one senses little in the way of urgent concern for Kardashian. Celebrity has this way of objectifying people, making them seem not quite real — especially a woman whose renown stems from using her life as a kind of performance art. When your life is a show, it becomes harder for people to take it seriously.
I’m thinking of a guy on Twitter who called West’s video “disturbing,” then added a laugh-till-you cry emoji. It made me wonder: Would he have found the situation funny if he understood it to be real?
I am a child of domestic violence, so believe me when I say: It doesn’t matter if the woman’s name is Kardashian or Jones, this is all quite real. And Kim Kardashian deserves what every woman in this situation deserves: empathy and regard. This has all the makings of a tragedy.
So, let’s not mistake it for a show.
