Ariana Grandes Latest Photoshoot Has Taken The Internet By Storm For All The Wrong Reasons

A fixture in the public eye since her early days as a child actress on Broadway, Ariana Grande is no stranger to public scandals. 

From messy breakups to a broken engagement, the actress-singer has never been one to evade the public eye. 

While she has been praised for her musical range and entertaining television appearances, Grande has repeatedly come under fire for “racefishing,” emulating different races in photos posted on social media.

Just this week, images of Grande have been heavily scrutinized as social media users have been shocked that it is indeed Ariana Grande in those pictures, not a K-pop star. 

What is Racefishing?

The term “blackfishing” was first coined in relation to white women darkening their skin and adopting black culture was partly coined by hip-hop journalist Wanna Thompson. 

She used the term to categorize the phenomenon of non-black influencers and public figures using excess amounts of makeup products and photoshop to appear racially ambiguous. 

Thompson noted that along with physical appearances, terms that had initially been coined by black artists were being increasingly used in the rise of social media culture, predominantly on Instagram. 

Very soon, white influencers had begun using African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in captions and their own speech. Songwriters, like Grande herself, had started incorporating AAVE in their music. 

Blackfishing was received negatively as people realized its connections to the racist practice of blackface, which involved white actors putting on dark, heavy makeup to mock the distinctive features of black people for comedic effect. 

Blackface emerged in the vaudeville tradition of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was quickly adopted by Hollywood in the 1920s and 30s. Many people believe that blackfishing can be perceived as a mask that can be removed at will – or when the trend of looking darker dies. 

In a similar vein, recreating Asian features (predominantly East Asian features) is just as old a practice. 

Many actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age dressed as “exotic, Oriental types,” often playing the temptress in many films of the era. 

Over the last few years, extreme interest in K-pop and Japanese Kawaii culture has garnered the Internet’s interest. Influencers who have adopted the style, mainly to show off their love for the region, have also been met with criticism.

Wasn’t Ariana Grande White? And Italian?

That seems to be the question that comes up whenever her name is trending on Twitter. 

After the release of her music video for ‘7 rings’, social media users began to ask Grande the question directly, but she never addressed the claims that she was blackfishing.

In an article in Femstella published yesterday, Alicia Khan claims that Grande switches her ethnicity based on what works for her public image at the time.

When comparing Grande’s most significant looks over the past few years, Khan notes that the singer often ditches the heavy makeup and “switch[es] in and out of racial aesthetics at some times and not others’ ‘ to differentiate between personal and professional milestones. 

Take her wedding, for example. She looks like the quintessential bride, in natural makeup and a white gown. 

Her spray tan does not seem to have made an appearance when she wants to present herself as the genetically pretty All-American bride. 

In her article, Khan writes: Non-black celebrities and entertainers like Ariana Grande know that to stay at the top of the charts and maintain career success, they need to blend into whatever holds the audience’s attention captive in any given social moment.”  

Truth be told, she is correct. Most of Grande’s success as a singer has been attributed to the similarities her music and the visual aesthetics of her music has followed the foundations laid by the black artists that struggled to make it in their day.

Unfortunately, it seems as though she (or rather, per PR team) is choosing to replicate this trajectory with the rising trend of Korean culture. 

Hopefully, the immense backlash she has received this time around will be addressed by the singer herself. It is important to note she is not the first white celebrity to be accused of race fishing. 

Still, she is currently the one with the highest number of very young and impressionable fans – most of whom are unaware of the harmful impact this behavior has on people of color. 

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