At the Golden Globes three weeks ago, black dresses on the red carpet helped draw the world's attention to abuses against women. Can white roses do the same at the
Grammys?
Beyond the big contests featuring
Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar and Bruno Mars at the 60th annual music awards on Sunday, the broader cultural question is how the show — andthe music industry — will address the #MeToo movement over sexual misconduct. While Hollywood has presented a united front, raising the bar for award-show activism with the flashy debut of the Time's Up campaign, the music world has so far lacked any similar momentum.
Outside of a Grammy performance by Kesha that is expected to allude to current conversations around gender, there was little planned for the show before an email campaign started on Wednesday, urging attendees to wear a white rose as a symbol of "hope, peace, sympathy and resistance." "I saw what they did at the Golden Globes, and I thought it was powerful," said Rapsody, a nominee for best rap album who signed on early to the white rose idea.
In recent months, as oncealmighty men in entertainment and politics have been felled by revelations of misconduct, galvanising women in those fields and beyond, figures at the top of the music business — another notoriously male-dominated industry — have remained largely untouched.
Though
Russell Simmons, a hip-hop luminary, was accused of rape by multiple women, the music world has seen no mass outpouring from victims. Nor has there been any organised activism like Time's Up, in which hundreds of prominent women, including Taylor Swift, introduced a legal defence fund. "Over all, I think the music industry has been shockingly underinvolved in this movement," said Minya Oh, the New York radio personality known as Miss Info. NYT
