DIVA
Marlene Dietrich, GAB Archive, available via Vogue France © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Last week, instead of tackling the mountain of assignments piling up on my (digital) desk, I decided to take a detour to the museum. Living in Rotterdam, I often enjoy the various exhibitions hosted at the Kunsthal Institution—a fascinatingly unconventional building where walls and hallways seem to jut out from everywhere. If you’ve ever explored Kunsthal without getting lost, you are either extremely gifted with navigation or you are lying. This time, I visited it specifically for an exhibition titled DIVA. My only understanding of the term "diva" was limited to the stereotypical image of a famous, demanding, and ambitious woman. Predictably, I was wrong.
I therefore found myself on a Friday morning inside Kunsthal’s building, where thick carpets muted every sound except for the occasional soft shuffle of footsteps. At the entrance of the exhibition, an employee handed me headphones. The subdued lights and the opera music resonating in my ears set the mood. The exhibition starts in the 19th century, when ‘diva’ was a synonym for extremely talented female opera singers. It’s the French writer Théophile Gautier who first called them divas, drawing inspiration from the goddesses of ancient Greece. This term captured the essence of these women: they were treated with an almost holy respect, but at the same time they were perceived as society’s outsiders. In the Victorian era, successful opera performers stood apart from other women by achieving rare independence. They had money, status, and influence, allowing them to emancipate from men. Yet, their triumphs came at a cost. Women in the theatre world were often labeled as provocative and classless, leading to their marginalization and stigmatization.
As the film industry blossomed in the 20th century, actresses began inheriting the title of “diva.” Initially, they were boxed into archetypal roles like the vamp or the sweetheart, roles, of course, imagined by and for the male gaze. However, women were never passive. On the contrary, they used their fame to challenge societal norms. Icons like Marlene Dietrich challenged gender norms and power dynamics, on and off screen, redefining society’s expectations. In the 1930 film Morocco (directed by Josef von Sternberg), Dietrich donned a now-iconic suit and stirred controversy with a same-sex kiss. Half a century later, Prince appeared in a submissive and androgynous pose for his album cover Lovesexy, perpetuating this legacy started by artists like Dietrich.
Prince for his album cover Lovesexy, shot by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, available via ESSENCE © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
But divas don’t stop at challenging gender norms. Beauty standards, cultural norms, and sexuality are also strongly shaken up by divas. Many also used their fame to advocate for civil rights, women’s rights, and queer rights, sometimes putting their careers at risk. Nina Simone, for instance, brought attention to racial and social injustice, leading to her boycott by the music industry. Her song To Be Young Gifted and Black (1970) remains to this day a strong, empowering message for young African Americans. More recently, contemporary artists like Lady Gaga or Chappel Roan have been advocating for queer rights, often praising the queer community as a creative source of inspiration.
‘With great power comes great responsibilities’ seems especially fitting for divas. From the 19th century to today, they have consistently wielded their influence to push for societal change and questioning.
However, starting in the 1920s and 1930s, Hollywood studios discovered that sensational stories about celebrities could fuel audience intrigue and boost ticket sales. Audiences took an interest in celebrities’ private lives, raising their fame to another level. This was a turning point in the meaning of ‘diva’: it slowly became associated with troublemakers. Divorces, affairs, or unconventional behaviors became tabloid content, often inviting criticism and scandal. Such scrutiny ended up being fatal for some of them. Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, and many others had a disastrous relationship with fame. This tension between private and public life is still a struggle for many divas, even though some of them started speaking up about it. Recently, Chappell Roan redefined celebrity boundaries, openly talking about her mental health and her need for privacy in an Instagram post.
As I arrived at the end of the exhibition, I realized I was right about one thing: divas are ambitious. They are ambitious in their courage, standing firm for their beliefs and challenging the status quo. Most of these divas are women, and I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t be qualified as ‘divas’ if they were white, straight cis men. For too long, ‘Diva’ has been associated with negative connotations, and it’s time to celebrate the divas for what they truly are: bold, revolutionary, and unapologetically themselves.
