By JUAN CANCIO
Scene Writer
In recent news, Kanye has garnered a lot of attention (surprise, surprise) for his tirade on Jimmy Kimmel. The TV personality aired a comedic skit on his late night program that poked fun at what Kanye had said in a BBC interview; unfortunately, Kanye took great offense to said skit and, in a way, took this skit as an affront to what he stood for as a human being. In the skit, the rapper was portrayed by a young child spewing all kinds of profanity and saying things which quite frankly did portray Kanye in a rather ridiculous light. Kanye responded to this skit by tweeting a slew of crazy things, most of which I undoubtedly cannot publish in this article due to their profane nature and many others which were nonsensical productions of his rage. He attacked Jimmy Kimmel for having aired the skit, and even went on to call Mr. Kimmel personally to request a public apology.
After this very public fight with Kimmel, Kanye agreed to make an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in order to bury the hatchet. His appearance on the show gave context to not only why he took so much offense to the skit, but also some personal history that he and Kimmel shared which apparently gravened his feelings of offense. In the interview, Kanye showed a surprisingly human side of himself that often times we as the "audience" of celebrities' antics are not able to see. The candid perspective of who this mega-personality really is when all the flashing lights cut to dark was surprisingly refreshing and interesting to say the least.
Although it is probably fair to say that Kanye can be a little too boisterous and caustic at times, it should be evident to most why Kanye took such great offense to the skit. This is not to say that the tweets and their content were excusable, because they did seem to blow things greatly out of proportion, but it is certainly understandable why any adult might be offended by being portrayed as a child.
Kanye without a doubt has a grandiose self-image, which some might argue he has no right to, but he spoke to Kimmel as a human being with real aspirations and dreams that he was trying to pursue and achieve through his art. He spoke about his past and present ventures in other art forms apart from rap, mainly fashion, and how he believed he could change the world for the better through said mediums. He made allusions to how he was trying to change the fashion scene as a whole by being an influential figure in this community, not only as a dynamic mover-and-shaker but also as an African-American, citing that his breakout success in this world was akin to Michael Jackson's success at becoming the first African-American to have his videos featured on MTV.
For any Kanye fans out there, or for anyone else looking to get a deeper perspective of what goes on inside of celebrities' minds, I would suggest taking a quick peek at the interview. Admittedly, it is arguable that Kanye could have been putting on a show both during his tweeting and the supposed reconciliation that occurred afterwards; however, it is up to you as the audience to decide whether his candor is real or not. In the end, it is hard to argue the point that Kanye does succeed at garnering a lot of attention, but as to whether or not his class and social criticisms actually do make a difference could be debatable.
Contact Juan Cancio at jcancio@nd.edu
