Ed Sheeran, mistaken misogynist

Best intentions...unanticipated outcomes

I love Ed Sheeran.

In the past I might have hidden that love but I am older now. Stronger. Self assured. That younger version of me wasn’t brave enough to publicly embrace the mainstream, but millions of people are fucking correct and he is amazing.

Castle on the Hill was one of the first songs I asked Steve to learn on guitar. His catalogue until that point was Ska. Odd on the acoustic but still Steve. Now he plays End of Youth way past the end of ours.

I watched (and rewatched for my “ask the kids to watch anything on mother’s day)the Disney + + doc on Ed and loved him more for it. Spoilers coming. He thought he was making a documentary about his album Subtract (the final album in his mathematics series) and instead found Disney +++ capturing crisis in his life. In the first of four episodes his wife mentioned that Ed was stoic and rarely cried. Then we watched him cry through concerts and re-telling of his wife’s cancer diagnosis and his best friend’s death. It was as gorgeous as his music. He was raw and despite being a global superstar and father twice over this year of loss represented the end of his youth. He wrote an album about it.

Ed has a reputation for being a wonderful human. This series made me believe it. We watched him teasing his wife (and her giving it back three fold,) his loyalty to his friends (many of whom he employs and who clearly keep him connected to his roots), his attachment to his family (at an LA tattoo parlor he and his dad plan a family tattoo and call in his mother for consult), and perhaps most movingly his relationship with his friend’s extended family with whom he grieved and remembered after Jamal’s death.

We also see him with his fans: at pop up shows, after show meet and greets and the unplanned concert where he took his little guitar from around his neck, signed it, and handed it to a boy in the audience.

Talking about his climb in the industry, which was not at all magical but instead the result of an absolute grind of performances with no one listening, he mentioned how few people supported him. Some did of course, but the vast majority left him to sink or swim. And he swam (which perhaps not coincidentally is one of the themes of the Subtract album.)

A man and his guitar. Taken by me.

So Ed reached out to young musicians to offer them the support he didn’t receive. I went to his Mathematics show at Gillette stadium in May (amazing, highly recommend) and he had Armenian singer Rosa Linn as his first opener. The scheduled opener Khalid had a (minor) car accident which had him miss some shows, John Mayer subbed in. John, a white guitar playing (like, amazingly guitar playing) gorgeous voiced (but possibly problematic)had been the metaphoric poster on Ed’s wall as he was growing up.

Perhaps because of John Ed talked about mentorship, what he had received and what he offered and said something along the lines of - I try to support upcoming musicians, particularly a boy with a guitar- the sentiment which is the impetus for this post.

The practice of mentoring people who reflect your younger self is not stark with Ed Sheeran. His collaboration no.6 album features plenty of people who don’t look like him, his friend Jamal was not white and their careers grew at the same time with mutual support, Shawn Mendes who is one of the artists that Ed supported’s father is is Portuguese, and as I mentioned Rosa Linn took the enormous stage before Ed at Gillette.

And still.

He wants to support boys with guitars. He wants to go back and save a younger version of himself. We can all relate to that. I want thirteen year old me to have the confidence to avoid those middle school girls who “broke up with me” by throwing a paper bag full of hate notes at my head. And if I don’t have a time machine I want to help the next falsely-extroverted-young-for-her-grade-jewish-girl-with-the-big-nose-and-too-large-for-seventh-grade boobs from trying too hard to fit in. Being lonely is not the worst thing even though it feels that way. I want her to learn from my struggles. Mentorship can be the best version of that desire.

Speaking of a time machines one of my favorite movies is 2013’s “Safety Not Guaranteed” which stars Audrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, and Jake Johnson. I have had the pleasure of dining with its director Colin Trevorrow a few times. He is smart, funny, self effacing (or he was then) and deserving of many accolades. Then Steven Spielberg found him and hired him to direct Jurassic World.

Don’t know who to credit. Wikipedia?

Colin.

Screen Crush. com

Steven

There is a distinct echo in their images and their imaginations.

This is how it happens. A generous gesture can have unintended consequences. There are more white men in positions of influence an America than any other demographic. They see a younger version of themselves in the world. They want to help. Celebrate their success save them from some grind, reimagine their own path to power as a gentler and easier than it was.

This is not nepotism, Ed’s guitar strumming boy and the director of Safety Not Guaranteed are nothing like George W Bush. They are talented and deserving. They enrich our lives as audience members. And they exemplify a mistaken misogyny.

Both Ed and Steven (first name basis for both obviously) have a diverse group of people that they mentor. They are way too successful and aware to have it any other way. Underneath though it seems like they have reached the end of their youth and are turning to a new version of themselves to re-live, re-write, re-experience their own struggles. I understand. I think we need to call it out anyways.

Hey successful white men: Go find a girl with a guitar, go find a Colleen. Your youth may have ended but I imagine there is great joy in guiding a youth that is not like your own. Let me suggest that you can do more than remember, you can re-member.

Does anyone have any other examples of similar mentor mentee pairs?

“Leaders raise the next generation of leaders. When they mentor people like themselves, they create a new generation of leaders that look just like them.” Sarah Spitz, Adage