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Diva envy: An ode to Mariah Carey

Oh. Mariah. If only we could all exist just a little more as you do, gracefully fluttering like a diva butterfly through questions about your ex-fiancé and Israel’s Prime Minister, comments Helen Razer.

Diva envy: An ode to Mariah Carey

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 31: Mariah Carey performs during New Year's Eve 2017 in Times Square on December 31, 2016 in New York City. Source: Noam Galai/FilmMagic/Getty Images

As any person who has given the matter more than a second’s thought will agree, the lives of celebrities and other powerful people . These people are not subject to pressures that are identical with, even similar to, yours. If you believe that the hard day that the Tesla CEO or the movie franchise idol had provides a moral or financial guide for everyday existence, well—not to be too much of a rude communist about it—but you are allowing the ruling class to maintain all their power. If we say that people who are not just like us are “just like us”, we ignore the gulf of influence and finance that so cruelly divides the world.
Diva envy: An ode to Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey is surrounded by fans after she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday, August 5, 2015. Source: Invision
Right. Now I’ve got the revolutionary rant out of the way, let’s talk about the one glittering, glorious superstar in whose celestial light we may all eternally bathe. Songbird. Ma-Ca. The Voice. Madame Butterfly. YES. Mariah Carey. I have been answering the question of Mimi for many years, and I have not decided in haste to let you know: she is the exception. Mariah may be your popular religion. Worship her.
I have been answering the question of Mimi for many years, and I have not decided in haste to let you know: she is the exception. Mariah may be your popular religion. Worship her.
When Mimi first slipped from paradise down to earth in the early 1990s, I was a fool not immediately drawn to her luminescence. This is because I was very busy wearing a flannelette shirt and listening to white boys complain about how their mothers didn’t love them enough to buy them proper guitars. may have objectively been one of the best sounds ever emitted by woman or machine, but I did not permit myself to love it. For that, I am ashamed.
But, not as ashamed as I am about another infraction. Not only did I deny myself the otherworldly pleasures of , , and hymns to the stubborn joy of existence too several to enumerate. No! It is because I denied myself the transcendent pleasure of Mimi herself.
Would that we could all exist just a little more as Mariah does, frolicking in gingham shirts and shortie Santa skirts through the rigours of everyday life.
Would that we could all exist just a little more as Mariah does, frolicking in gingham shirts and through the rigours of everyday life. There have been other divas, certainly, who give us this guide to glitter and show us a true, not a false, vision of possible joy through their art and their dress. Barbra Streisand, for example. Or, more lately, Beyoncé. But Mimi has a little something that they do not: no sort of apparent desire at all to be Taken Seriously.
Mimi does not take herself seriously, and by these means, she cannot possibly encourage us to do the same. Life, according to the book of Carey, is something to be laughed at when it is not being endured.

The first hint I had of Mimi’s deep spiritualism came late. It was about 15 years ago when Her Glittership was asked her opinion of Jennifer Lopez. MC simply answered, “”.

Of course, our butterfly knew who J-Lo was. Mimi’s was not a true refusal to acknowledge the success of Lopez, an artist about whom it was then actually impossible to remain in ignorance. This, for mine, was not nasty. Rather, it was the first glorious day in which I knew that I could live a life like Mimi’s, and shove my head in a desert of sequins when it suited my mood.
Mimi does not take herself seriously, and by these means, she cannot possibly encourage us to do the same. Life, according to the book of Carey, is something to be laughed at when it is not being endured.
There have since been other dazzling occasions in which the Heartbreaker has shown us all how to live as she does: graciously. For example, in 2016, the Goddess of Light performed on New Year’s Eve at Times Square. Having given her all to so many for decades, the great creature was not in fine voice. Those who did not understand the true spirit of Mariah attacked her. And, what did she do? Arose once more like a phoenix in Halston and hit all the notes, both in and in .

And, then, there was the time she visited a high-end restaurant and requested that her music be played as she dined. This was misunderstood by those who are not Mimi faithful as the . Have these people not heard ? What could be better than enjoying the best music in the world while shovelling pasta into one’s gob? And what could be more truly elevating than seeing the very architect of this music doing the same?
In moving news this week, provided moral instruction to her millions, if not billions, of devotees. I personally would have preferred that she have not done this glorious thing while promoting , but an imperfect goddess is a perfect goddess to me, especially when she is asked to report on what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said during dinner, and she answered that she was too interested in the food to notice.
Diva envy: An ode to Mariah Carey
James Packer with former fiancee Mariah Carey. Source: AAP
And, especially (a warning, the language in this link may not be safe for work) when she was asked of the whereabouts of the man we must now presume to be her ex, and she answered as only a .

Oh. Mariah. I am no slave to celebrity and no servant to the idea that there are those among us powerful enough to represent all of the people here on earth. For you, I make an exception.

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5 min read
Published 29 June 2017 11:47am
Updated 29 June 2017 11:59am
By Helen Razer


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