I've been thinking a lot about legacy recently. Partly because life is fleeting, and pondering what (and who) will be left to speak for me after my death is the kind of existential fodder I thrive on. And partly because we’re living in a cultural era unlike any other.
Due, in large part, to the rise of the #MeToo movement, our culture is now impeaching the legacies of several famous men who’ve been accused, and in some cases, convicted of sexual misconduct. Bill Cosby. Harvey Weinstein. R. Kelly. Matt Lauer. Kevin Spacey. Even Michael Jackson. The list is extensive and growing, and the consequences of being on it are real: shelved movies, canceled shows, muted music.
This era of accountability is important and beyond overdue; powerful, abusive men have taken shelter in the safety of their privilege for far too long. But, as timely and needed as this movement has been, it's ultimately felt incomplete. A powerful abuser, who's gone unchecked for years, has continued to escape judgment. They're not a singer, an actor, or a powerful business executive; it's not even one person.
It's all of us.
As a culture, we have yet to be held fully accountable for our violation of countless women. Women we've collectively shamed and ridiculed, harassed and gaslit; women who've given us love, only to be abused in return. When I think about these women and their legacies, Black women, in particular, come to mind. And while there are many I could call out by name, there's one that stands out from among the rest, at least for me: Whitney Houston.
I can’t remember the first time I heard her voice. Like many of the legendary voices woven in the sonic fabric of our culture, I heard Whitney before I heard of Whitney. “I Will Always Love You” is a song everyone knows, even if you don’t quite understand the woman behind it.
The Whitney I eventually came to know, as a young millennial coming of age in the aughts, wasn’t the megastar of the 80s and 90s. She was no longer the reigning Queen of Soulful Pop who had amassed seven consecutive number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, a record still unbroken. In the consciousness of pop culture, she was a fallen star, a lost icon, a “has been.”
Due to her public battles with drug addiction, tumultuous marriage to R&B singer, Bobby Brown, and short-lived stint as an eccentric reality star on Being Bobby Brown, Whitney was a fixture of the tabloids more so than the charts. Even after staging a semi-successful comeback with her 2009 album, I Look to You, reports of her poor vocal performance at concerts further diminished her star power.
When news of her death broke on the eve of the 2012 Grammys, there was an immediate outpouring of love. Major news networks scrapped their regularly-scheduled programming to interview friends and colleagues who knew her. Her music shot to the top of the charts. Her legacy was, in many respects, celebrated once again―or, at least, at the outset.
As more details surrounding her sudden death emerged, the conversation grew increasingly invasive. Rather than meditating on the fact that she single-handedly shattered and rebuilt our conception of the “pop vocalist,” we fixated on the salaciousness of her death. We re-hashed her history of drug addiction and re-litigated her marriage to Brown. And when the final toxicology report revealed that cocaine use had contributed to her death, many people settled on a final conclusion: Whitney Houston was a drug addict who foolishly squandered her God-given talent.
For reasons I still don’t quite understand, something about Whitney’s death changed me. In the past seven years, I’ve spent countless hours watching her old interviews. I’ve had many internal debates about which of her live performances rises above the rest (final verdict: this 1986 rendition of “I Am Changing”). I’ve streamed every album, read every thinkpiece, seen every movie. When it comes to Whitney Houston, there’s little I haven’t heard, read, or watched. And having been immersed in her world for quite some time now, I’ve reached a conclusion of my own: Whitney deserved better from us.
Recently, a video showing Whitney’s jubilant reaction to Lauryn Hill’s 1999 Album of the Year win for Miseducation of Lauryn Hill circulated on Instagram. As one of the only two Black women who had won that award prior to Hill (Natalie Cole was the other), Whitney understood the gravity of the moment. It’s evident in the fierceness of her clap and the warm tenor of her and Hill’s embrace. And yet, in the video’s comment section, several commenters simply dismissed her as being high.
Disparaging remarks like these aren’t anomalies. They are an outcropping of a far-too popular perception of Whitney Houston in this country. In many circles, she isn’t revered as an unparalleled singer who struggled with drug addiction. She’s seen as a drug addict who just happened to sing well.
Whitney wasn’t the first singer to struggle with drugs; many others have. But our attitude towards her has always been different. We haven’t treated her like Elvis, Janis Joplin, or Jimi Hendrix. Rather than seeing her drug addiction as one part of her story, we’ve placed it at the very center of it. Even in Kevin Macdonald’s recent, estate-approved documentary, Whitney, her downfall―as opposed to her unmatched rise―is the narrative’s core.
As many others have noted, Whitney was purposely molded to be America’s ideal Pop Princess from the beginning. She couldn’t be anything in excess: too Black, too white, too sophisticated, too ghetto. Beyond the gender and race-based double standards Black women already face, Whitney was especially pressured to be pristine and perfect. Her voice was divine, and we expected her to be, too. Of course, she was human. But we never gave her space to be that, even after her fall from grace. When her drug addiction eventually came to light, there was no widespread show of empathy. We made jokes and exploited her personal pain for ratings. We didn’t care.
Whitney had her flaws, no doubt. But they are far outweighed―no, they are utterly crushed―by the sheer magnitude of her talent. The lushness of her tone, the elasticity of her range, and the fervor of her vocal timbre are incomparable. Her rendition of the National Anthem is the undisputed benchmark. Generations of singers study her, hoping to one day access a fraction of the emotive power she wielded in her Welcome Home Heroes’ performance of “A Song For You.” This is her true legacy―all else is irrelevant.
She deserves everything we can give her: a biopic, a Broadway show, a national monument.
Today, as we indict the self-tarnished legacies of many once-revered men, we have an opportunity to finally do right by Whitney, and all the other Black women we tarnished because we refused to reverence their humanity. In so many ways, time is up. But in this way, it's just getting started. Now is the perfect moment to restore Whitney to her rightful place in the cultural pantheon―and begin populating that beautiful world on the other side of cancellation.
