Pop fans? No, FREEDOM FIGHTERS
Deeply personal, profound... and so very moving. An academic whose daughter* adores Ariana Grande pays a unique tribute to the bomb victims
MY DAUGHTER is an Arianator. For five years Anna has been a devoted member of the Ariana Grande cult – in which any kind of parental intervention is unwelcome. My role was to sit at gigs, surrounded by young girls aged between eight and 15, with their hair in a high pony tail, wearing cat’s ears and miniskirts, surging with rhythmic adulation towards their object of devotion on stage, while I stared down at my shoes and wondered how life had come to this.
Occasionally I would exchange glances with another dad, a fleeting moment of intimacy and shared pain, a genuine compassion, as we gazed in appalled wonder as our daughters were transported into a place we could never go and yet for whom our hearts were full of a boundless, enduring love.
And their hearts were full of love, too, but for each other, and for Ariana herself, who combines being immaculate as a singer and dancer with being the ‘kindest, funniest and most honest’ woman they had ever come across.
When Ariana Grande’s grandfather Frank Sr died, this was a sad day in our house. Anna requested we watch Ariana’s tribute to him, in which she reflected on the importance of the work ethic he had taught her and then played a video clip of Frank Sr telling Ariana that she could be anything that she wanted to be and that her only enemy was herself.
He called on her to have the courage and determination to be the woman that she knew she could be. Family values, empowered women, the work ethic, self-respect – all very far from my experience of pop music.
If it sounded a little like preaching, then Arianators were more than willing worshippers.
SHIA Muslims have a tradition that they should choose their favourite Ayatollah and make him an object of emulation in their lives. That means not simply accepting his religious authority, but to live as he lives, to adopt his customs and manners, or even his mannerisms. Ariana’s fandom is extremely Shia in this regard.
They dress as she dresses, stand as she stands, live as she lives. Anna became a vegetarian, like her idol. She wore the ears, the hair, the skirts.
She adored Ariana’s family, just as some would adore a royal family. The person Ariana is closest to is her Queen Mother, Joan, who goes on tour with her while running some company for the US Navy. They are from Boca Raton, Florida, a town that voted for Trump, but Ariana doesn’t roll that way.
Her realm is inclusive, nonjudgmental and forgiving. Then there is her brother Frankie Jr, engaged in a lifetime mission of pursuing celebrity and fame in his own right, but sadly he has no discernible talent for anything.
Ariana’s love for him is ferocious and she is there for him whenever he needs her. He is gay and Ariana changed her religion because the Catholic Church condemned it. The message is love and an acceptance of failure combined with a determination to carry on pursuing the dream of fulfilment that Frankie is searching for and can never realise. What is missing is a dad, Mr Grande, who divorced Joan many years ago and is barely spoken of. It is a world in which the women are the stars and the backstage support team. Family and superstardom are not opposed, they are complementary. Patriarchy is entirely absent.
In this world, girls are not to be treated as objects but are exhorted to be ‘comfortable with their own sexuality’, which doesn’t seem to have anything to do with sex but an attitude of living that involves sometimes dressing up and dressing down depending on how you feel.
It means sharing vulnerability and sharing strength, living out your mood. If I occasionally viewed it as corporate, ersatz nonsense, then my daughter certainly didn’t.
She had found a world of kindness and dignity in the sordid social media of celebrity and she treasured Ariana and her struggles to be free and authentic. If I wanted any kind of relationship with my daughter, I had to respect Ariana. And it was easy. She tells her fans they should not accept objectification and be the girl they want to be. Their pre-pubescent devotion is the most innocent expression of freedom, of communion with a world of love, friendship, beauty and compassion.
THE Islamists knew what they were doing. When my daughter received a ‘like’ from Ariana on one of her countless tweets of devotion, my first response to the noise Anna made was to call an ambulance. She was, in fact, happy.
When Ariana was in London, Anna would bunk off school and stand in the freezing cold outside her hotel just to be near her. There was one time when no one knew where she was, but I found out where Ariana was staying and there Anna was, blue with cold but unrepentant.
I took her for a McDonald’s and then she went back and I picked her up four hours later.
The girls gave their lives for love. Their kingdom lives on
There was nothing I could say. It was an act of devotion.
Anna once met Ariana and the selfie she took is so reminiscent of the one of Georgina Callander, killed on Monday night, that I had to look away. The same serenity on her face, the same sheer happiness of being near her object of emulation, who she knew to be good.
I had been preparing to go to Ariana’s gig at London’s O2 on Friday with Anna. It was with this in mind I received the news of the mass murder of girls in Manchester and the message from Islamic State that this ‘crusader gathering’ was ‘shameful’ and the killings righteous.
They kill Christians, Shia, Yazidis, Kurds and normal Muslims, too. With intent. And now they kill young girls wearing miniskirts and cat ears.
They kill them because they are free of male dominion. They kill them because they think their freedom is shameful. They kill them because they have no understanding of innocence. They kill them because they are beyond their control and live in their own kingdom of strong, independent womanhood.
It is an inclusive realm in which there is no bullying or violence, and no need for judgment. Each girl is not a princess but a queen and is treated with respect in and for herself, recognised not just for her goodness but her power.
The dead girls and their parents gave their lives for love and they were killed for that reason. Their kingdom lives on.