It has been a tremendous couple of weeks for pop superstar Ariana Grande. The success of her most recent album thank u, next is quite literally record-breaking as Grande holds the top three spots on the Billboard Hot 100 music chart. This may be the best year of Grande’s career to date—but success never comes without criticism.
One of Grande’s recent singles to occupy the number two Billboard spot is called “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored.” Upon its release, Grande was met with plenty of backlash, but she—and the song—don’t deserve it.
At a purely surface level, the title of this song doesn’t exactly seem to share a morally sound message, but the song goes much deeper than its title. Take one look at Grande’s tumultuous personal life in just this past year. She recently ended her whirlwind engagement to comedian Pete Davidson and continues to mourn the loss of rapper Mac Miller, whom she dated from September 2016 to May 2018.
It’s clear that Grande is taking time now to focus on herself. In an emotional speech at the Billboard Women in Music 2018 event, she took to the mic to say, “I look forward to hopefully learning to give some of the love and forgiveness that I have given away so frivolously and easily to men in the past to myself, hopefully, this year.”
As her new music shows strong themes of female-friendships and self-discovery, Grande seems to be sticking to this self-love resolution.
If Grande’s personal struggles aren’t enough to convince a listener that “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored” is much more innocent than it seems, the music video may clear things up. Sure, the video begins with Grande eyeing a man who is clearly in a relationship with someone else, but the girlfriend that stands between Grande and the male interest is dressed to look exactly like Grande.
The long signature ponytail, the oversized sweatshirt and knee-high boots—it’s all there; and it’s no coincidence either. At the end of the music video, Grande ends up pursuing the look-alike girlfriend instead of the male interest. This is meant to show how Grande is finally choosing herself, instead of prioritizing a relationship.
Despite all the reasoning in the world, Grande still receives hate for this track. A simple Twitter search of “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored” yields thousands of tweets bashing Grande for promoting homewrecking and cheating. She’s scolded for being a bad role model to young girls.
Even if Grande was promoting the idea of ruining relationships and stealing boyfriends, it’s receiving such harsh backlash when there are so many other songs about cheating and homewrecking that seem to slip under the radar of criticism. There’s the classic “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy, “I Luv Your Gurl” by The-Dream and don’t forget about Trey Songz, whose nickname is literally “Mr. Steal Yo Girl.”
It’s not true of all male artists, but it’s so easy for them to sing or rap about having multiple women and crazy affairs—it has almost become expected in music. When a woman, like Grande does it, they receive so much hate. There’s a societal expectation that women should behave themselves and be the gentler, less sexually open counterpart to men. That expectation is ridiculous, and Grande knows it.
From the transparent and sometimes painfully honest content of her songs, to the way she openly addresses sex, mental health and tragedy, Grande is challenging what it means to be a young woman in the music industry. She’s doing what she wants, when she wants and how she wants.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Grande expressed that she wishes to, “put out music in the way that a rapper does. I feel like there are certain standards that pop women are held to that men aren’t.” According to the drop of her latest album, she’s done just that.
It’s clear that Grande isn’t in the business of breaking up relationships—she’s here to make music and break records.