For the last little while, celebrity discourse has included a lot of discussion about nepo babies. Which beautiful child was spawned by which celebrity, and how are they using their good fortune? Whose hot wooden son is going to be starring in a new blockbuster after deciding on a whim to try acting? Which comedian’s 18-year-old daughter is going to be in the writers’ room for that new sketch show?
It’s tempting, especially if you work in the arts, to point at these people (especially the untalented ones) and whinge about the unfair advantages they have had. For me, it helps scratch an itch. If you’re someone who also wants to create work, it’s a bummer to think how different things might be had you been born into money, or went to the right schools, or got in a room with the right people. It’s difficult not to vent about those who have had an easier path.
But it’s ultimately just demoralising and a waste of energy. It’s like complaining to a brick wall about how lucky it is to have a roof for a dad.
In a helpful shift of perspective, I’ve had some reminders that there are plenty of people now in the spotlight who had to battle to get there.
The first came when I was watching a conversation between Jennifer Aniston and Quinta Brunson. Brunson created, writes and stars in the hit comedy Abbott Elementary. Her career is thriving now but, before the show took off, 34-year-old Brunson had plugged away for years. After doing all types of non-TV jobs, alongside writing, pitching, creating and birthing disappointments, she told Aniston that she had been planning to move back home if the Abbott Elementary pilot didn’t get picked up by a network.
In 2020 the now Oscar-nominated Lily Gladstone was 33 and critically acclaimed as an actor, yet even she was having to look for a more sustainable career. She says she had her “credit card out, registering for a data analytics course” before she got the call that Martin Scorsese wanted her for Killers of the Flower Moon. Apologies to the data analytics community but thank God.
It’s not always an age thing. The pop girlie of the moment Chappell Roan is only 26 but, when her label dropped her in 2020 after she’d been poor and working for years to make her career happen, she says she was “so close to giving up”. She gave herself a final 12 months to try to make something happen. Queer women and dancefloors everywhere rejoice.
We get drip-fed these stories of triumph. One of my comedy idols, Melissa McCarthy, had been planning to quit on her 30th birthday but got her part in Gilmore Girls a few days before it.
The stories that inspire me are often from people who have extra barriers to entry, like not being thin, white or straight. Their deserved recognition is beneficial for society, and by society I mostly mean an ageing me.
As I get older and slowly turn to ash (while still trying to build a stable career), witnessing these sorts of breakthroughs makes a difference. I rely on them more and more. When I start to wonder what age is the right one to give up on your dreams, after how many years does the commitment become sad instead of artistic, when do I just compete to be the funniest one in an office – seeing these people achieve their goals is motivating.
Nobody is forced to go into the arts, to try to make things, and many will dismiss this as something that doesn’t really matter. I am conflicted about this career myself, feeling guilty that my working-class family gave me the opportunity to get educated and have stability, and I instead decided to go down the overgrown path of an artist.
Trying to create a career like this can feel frivolous and get tiring and dispiriting. Seeing these huge and hard-won successes buoys me. People who are now creating things I love had to put in years of hard work, in circumstances more difficult than mine, and they also considered quitting during uncertain times – but they got there.
I am so incredibly glad that they didn’t give up. I’m grateful that they took the difficult, unfair, unforgiving path to get their art seen.
The media landscape is never short of work and ideas from people who have walked through a lot of open doors to reach their success. It begets more of the same work from the same perspectives, and the cycle is bad for everyone – including audiences.
These wins are reminders for all of us that, even though things aren’t fair, and talent and hard work aren’t necessarily rewarded … sometimes they … eventually … are. Nobody will be cross-stitching it on to a cushion – but it’s still something.
• Rebecca Shaw is a writer based in Sydney
