Kanye West: Male Privilege in the Media

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As we’ve all seen, Kanye West has made some wild Instagram posts recently, particularly pertaining to his kids, ex-wife Kim Kardashian, and Kim’s new boyfriend- Pete Davidson. This all started when he crashed his daughter’s birthday party shortly after buying a house next to Kim’s home. The media has not only supported Kanye in his posting, buying this home, and crashing his daughter’s party but has also encouraged this behavior. With this outpouring support from media and fans, they are only making his crisis worse. Fans and media are treating this mental crisis as a show for them to profit off of as well, WHICH IS NOT OKAY AT ALL. Men’s mental health is not taken seriously enough and made into a show by the media. 

Many people have had public breakdowns including Amanda Bynes, Demi Lovato, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Maria Carey, and many more. If you look up “celebrities who have had public breakdowns,” the article Freaking Out! 10 Celebrities Who Were Abruptly Hospitalized For Mental Breakdowns. The article not only shames these people by describing them as “Freaking Out” in the title but also includes only one male. The rest are women who were mainly “involuntarily” hospitalized, and brutalized by the media, rather than encouraged, a large contrast to Kanye.

One of the worst cases of the relationship between media and mental health has been Britney Spears. Her breakdown is infamous as its staple includes the photo of her with a bald head and an umbrella. Although Britney had been scrutinized, sexualized, and defamed by the media her whole career, this took an even worse turn when these photos surfaced. In turn, Britney went into a dark space mentally due to the media’s handling of the situation. She basically lost her career at that point and was placed into a conservatorship soon after. All against her will.

Now when Kanye does something similar, the media has a mindset that he is a “crazy genius”, that this crisis is just going to lead him to greatness, while women like Britney Spears and Amanda Bynes are called “insane” and “psychopaths” who are “hard to work with.” He can get away with wearing the ugliest boots man has ever seen with barely even a scratch. He can work with Marilyn Manson with only praise. People pine to work with him after public meltdowns, like Jack Harlow. He can publicly destroy his family and the media eats it up. The media does nothing but validate him. 

Kanye has only profited off of the media's attention to his breakdown. On February 16th he released his documentary Jeen-Yuhs, he’s gained millions of followers on Instagram, he released an album on February 22nd on the stem player (which has again skyrocketed sales,) and streams have gone up with him being “the most streamed artist on February 25th” according to his Instagram. 

Overall, Kanye’s behavior should not be encouraged. We do not know the situation, but his family does. And they see his inappropriate and far-out posts, and they express their discomfort such as Kim did in court according to People. The media should not encourage actions that create turmoil and dysfunction in an innocent family, nor should they treat his crisis like a pawn or a story.