Fame Purgatory and an Ode to Bargain Basement Rihanna: Rita Ora
Pop culture must also have a fame synbiosis. There will always be A-Listers but in order for the A-Listers to survive and thrive, there must also be B-Listers who live within the same realm. In better terms you have a name brand and a store brand, with the store brand acting as means for comparison to the best option. Rita Ora lives in the same realm of Up & Up, Amazon Basics, Target’s Room Essentials, Kroger-brand cheese and “adhesive bandages”. All do the job just fine but they are no where as good as the real thing. But there is a beauty to Rita Ora because in a way, she is the best at second best. Her entire career can be summed up in that you might know her name, you kind of know her face, but do you know her music? She’s always on American TV hosting something, but what does she do every day? US X Factor and MTV tell me she can sing, but I’ve never seen her do it on American Televsion.
Rita Ora’s music career begins in 2012 when she burst on to the UK and US Pop Scene with the single “R.I.P” and ever since then fuck if I know.
But she was featured on a song from Avicii’s new EP that is actually great, and she’s got a banger from 2014 called “I Will Never Let You Down” which, according to Wikipedia Hit Number 1 on the UK Singles Chart and has been a feature on my pregame list for a while now. It’s got a great bridge and a beat that’s perfect for doing Jell-O shots. Take a listen here and decide if it’s blackout worthy.
But ever since “R.I.P” Ora has failed to make an impact in the US with her music, and having only 1 full-length album to your name doesn’t help. But the exposure she has gotten since 2012 has led her float in some sort of fame middle ground.Fame Purgatory if you will. Not quite forgotten, but not really remembered. And like Rihanna, she has gained a lot of fame from other ventures like acting and hosting. But unlike Rihanna, who’s first and continued label has been that of musician, Ora has been subjugated to reality competition host and worming her way in to bad films. In the Fifty Shades of Grey films she plays Jamie Dornan’s sister and over two films has a total of probably 10 lines. Although the first film is the best of the series (which is not saying much) she arguably has the one of the worst wigs ever on screen. The blunt bob with hard bangs only looks good on American Girl dolls, which is what I’m sure they modeled it after. If Julia Roberts couldn’t pull it off in “Mother’s Day”, then Rita really had no chance to begin with.
Rita’s bad luck in the series doesn’t stop there becuase we barely see her face in the second film. A major plot point of the film takes place at a maquerade party hosted at the Grey mansion, which incidently is the only part of the movie she shows up in. And in the third movie she gets kidnapped out of nowhere.
So after having a terrible wig, her face covered up, and having no agency as a character, I will commend her on getting her own title card. Whoever finagled that deserves all the money those movies didn’t spend on competent screenwriters.
And while her illustrious film career is Oscar worthy, her reality hosting gigs are where the real money is. She has served as a X Factor guest judge, America’s Next Top Model host, and a coach on the UK version of The Voice. But the culmination of her hosting gigs was this past summer’s bullshit reality competition Boy Band where America voted to create a boy band.
Spoiler Alert: They all ended up being white. Shocker.
Rita Ora is not the only one of her kind though. There is a plethora of other B-List celebrities who consistently work in the industry but never reach that higher level because there is a better version of them out there. In fact, there is a whole podcast dedicated to celebrities that have moderate success but your aunt in Bumfuck Kansas doesn’t know their name. Titled “Who? Weekly”, they discuss celebrities in the same camp as Ora. People like JoJo Siwa, Noah Cyrus, Naya Rivera, Armie Hammer, Tyler Oakley, Hailey Baldwin, and poor man’s Bieber Cody Simpson. In fact at the end of their show every week they give us an update on what Rita has been up to as she is the shining star of “who-dom”.
These are the people on the mainstream pop culture fringe. The periphery of being household names. They live in the AA and AAA brackets of success in the entertainment industry, working their way to be the next Denzel Washington, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, or Tom Cruise. But it’s not to say they are unimportant. They are in their own way. Who else will be there to take on action movies that the Hemsworth brothers turned down? Jai Courtney will be. Who will perform at the Mall of America in the dead of winter when we need them most? Jackie Evancho will stop by after her 3rd alt-right (Reich?) rally gig of the day.
And when someone needs and ethnically ambiguous woman who can sing, who’s booking fee isn’t too much and her rider won’t have ridiculous requests on it, who will be there?
Rita Ora will.
