If you weren’t aware of the hold nepotism has on Hollywood before December 2022, you certainly were after the drop of Vulture’s iconic, “The Year of the Nepo Baby” article. The piece humorously describes the history of the term “nepo baby”, who the current nepo babies are, and the controversy surrounding them. I won’t bore you with facts, but after this article was released a majority of society deemed nepotism as “corrupt”, and an “unfair advantage” given to “unwilling” children.
I completely agree that nepo babies have been handed everything in life, and I would agree that it is unfair to non-nepo babies to compete with them. There have been countless times when a talented individual who worked hard has lost a job to a nepo baby simply because the director knows their parents.
Since the article came out I’ve had one nagging thought, and it’s this. We can hate on and blame nepo babies for being handed everything all we want, but everyone who says they wouldn’t take advantage of the opportunities nepotism gives to the children is lying to themselves.
If I had famous and rich parents I would 100 percent be trying to use them to get jobs, so I can’t blame Maude Apatow and Lily Rose-Depp for doing the same thing – however I can blame Brooklyn Beckham and Hailey Bieber.
My animosity towards certain nepo babies is not because of their nepotism per se. For example, Brooklyn Beckham has landed jobs modeling, photographing, acting, and now professionally cooking! He just isn’t good at any of it (look up his photography collection “What I See” if you need a good laugh). As for Hailey Bieber, if the Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber drama isn’t enough to make you dislike her, she is known for pulling the victim card when being criticized for her nepotism. After the Vulture article came out, Hailey was seen wearing a shirt with the phrase “nepo baby”, which would’ve been funny to me if it was literally anyone else.
I think an important side note is that nepotism doesn’t automatically equal untalented. Lily Collins and Dakota Johnson, two of my personal favorite nepo babies, are incredible actresses. Is it obvious that they inhabit these talents because they were raised by talented actors and actresses? Yes. Does that diminish their genius? Not to me. And if it does to you, that is perfectly okay.
I hope I don’t get canceled for writing this. I know nepotism is quite a remarkable controversy right now, but in my opinion, it truly is not that important. No matter how much disdain or praise we express for nepo babies, nepotism isn’t going anywhere. So in the meantime I am going to love every bit of entertainment nepo babies bring us.
Words by Alix Russell-Mann.
Graphic by Gavin Bacher.