Chappell Roan

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Name: Kayleigh Rose Amstutz
Also Known As: Chappell Roan
Occupation: Musician
Medium: Music
Works: School Nights, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, Good Luck, Babe!
Official Website(s): Website
Wikipedia page
Fan Website(s):
On Fanlore: Related pages

Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, better known by her stage name and drag persona Chappell Roan (CHAP-ษ™l ROHN), is an American singer songwriter known for her campy synth-pop music heavily influenced by drag queens' aesthetic. Her debut album, 2023's The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess was a huge commercial success in 2024 and a growing fandom for Roan has developed in a relatively short amount of time.

Her music heavily reflects her experience as a lesbian, and her fanbase has a large sapphic presense as a result. She also has bipolar II.

At a Coachella performance, Roan introduced herself as "your favourite artists' favourite artist", part-homage to drag queen Sasha Colby, and the phrase is now heavily associated with her.

History

My name is Chappell Roan. I'm your favorite artist's favorite artist. I am your dream girl's dream girl. And I'm gonna serve exactly what you are: cunt!

Chappell Roan at Coachella 2024

Roan was born to a conservative religious family from a small town in Willard, Missouri.

In an interview by The Guardian, she shares that she was inspired by 2010s musicians like Kesha, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry during her childhood. Music was young Chappell's outlet, formally taking piano lessons at age 12 and performing publicly.

At 13, Roan was already writing her own songs. Her first muse was an older Mormon student, to whom she wrote love songs about.

Fandom

Songs in Fanworks

A number of Roan's songs focus on the experiences of being queer, particularly a lesbian, and fans have used those songs to create fan vids and TikTok edits, as well as putting the lyrics into fan art and web weaving.

Femslash pairings where a common trope is internalized homophobia or denial of sexuality are popular subjects for the song, Good Luck, Babe!, while the song Casual is often used in pairings where fandom interpret them as having a 'situationship' which leads to tension between the characters.

Example Fanworks

TikTok

Shortly after Kamala Harris was announced to be running as the democratic presidential candidate, creators on TikTok began to create edits of clips of Kamala Harris to the song Femininomenon[1]. Some of these received millions of views and interactions, leading to the Harris' campaign creating their own edit to the song, and generating discussions of the edits and the impact of them potentially on engagement with the upcoming elections on other social media platforms and in the mainstream media[2].

VMAs Performance

In particular, her VMAs performance, which drew on Joan of Arc and Julie d'Aubigny, inspired a great deal of fanwork. She is often referred to in this performance as Roan of Arc by fans.

Concerts

During the song Picture You, Roan will place a wig on the mic stand to serenade to. She named it Wigalita, a name that has spread around the fandom.

Cosplay & Halloween

Dressing as one of Roan's iconic outfits is fairly common. Much of this cosplaying occurred during Halloween - or Chappellween - 2024.

Outside of cosplaying, there were several documented instances of people setting up house and garden displays based on Roan. Two of the more common displays involved skeletons either performing the Hot to Go! dance or dressing up as the 'Pink Bony Club'.

RPF

RPF fics range from gen to reader-inserts. Some fanworks involve her relationship with the Siren from the Casual music video. Occasionally she'll also be shipped with fellow singers such as Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, or Taylor Swift.

Terminology

  • Roan of Arc
  • Wigalita
  • Strappell Roan

Interactions with Fans

She is generally against fans calling her by her real name, in part to differentiate between her personal life and her persona.

Speaking out against harrassment

[bahrlee]
"We need more complex female characters" you guys can't even handle Chappell Roan, Real Life Woman with Boundaries[3]
[@TheVideoChatter]
Celebrities have been killed by crazed stalkers. Thatโ€™s how we lost Christina Grimmie (Rest in peace) ๐Ÿ•Š Chappell has every right to protect herself, and anyone whoโ€™s angry at her over such a thing is super weird.[4]

US Election Discourse

Meme involving Chappell and Ethel Cain.

In an interview with The Guardian, Roan expressed that she wouldn't be endorsing Kamala Harris for President of the USA during the 2024 US Elections, stating that both sides were bad, and that trans rights was a major issue she felt passionate about. Some folks, both fans and non-fans, criticised this lack of endorsement, accusing her of being a centrist or closet Republican. Roan responded with two TikToks clarifying her statement, notably citing the Palestinian genocide as a further reason, and garnering both support and criticism after each one.

Many of Chappell's fans supported her views, and many leftists with varying levels of familiarity with the singer have gained a certain level of respect for her statements, especially in comparison to other artists.[5] Some Palestinians, as well as Lebanese and other Arab folks, also provided their own thoughts, including support.

Soon after, Roan cancelled her appearances at the All Things Go music festival last minute, stating that things had "gotten overwhelming over the past few weeks".

Some have argued that part of the appeal of Roan in the eyes of her fans is her authenticity and ability to say and do things few other in the industry seem to be willing to.[6]

Roan's comments and the subsequent fallout garnered several discussions regarding fan entitlement and celebrity culture.

Hot take but I think Chappell Roan has exactly zero reason to give a shit about couching her words in a way that will make other people comfortable. As a very publicly queer woman who actively stands up for trans people, the media and the public are already strongly motivated to twist everything she says into the most outlandishly unflattering possible interpretation, and since that's already gonna happen no matter what, she might as well speak truthfully.

Mental Health

[๐•ญ๐–‘๐–”๐–”๐–‰ ๐•ด๐–“๐–ˆ๐–—๐–š๐–˜๐–™๐–†๐–ˆ๐–Š๐–†๐–“ ๐Ÿป@crustaceanfella]
Itโ€™s wild that itโ€™s the metal and punk crowd that seem to sympathizing with Chappell Roan so much more than her actual pop fanbase, but at the same time it makes complete sense
[๐•ญ๐–‘๐–”๐–”๐–‰ ๐•ด๐–“๐–ˆ๐–—๐–š๐–˜๐–™๐–†๐–ˆ๐–Š๐–†๐–“ ๐Ÿป@crustaceanfella]
I think a big part of it, is alternative genres in general have such strong ties to mental health. Pop (generalizing) has always been more about having fun and mindless consumption. Both have their time and place, but the average pop fan (generalizing again) doesnโ€™t care what an artist is going through, they just care about hearing some catchy bops while they drive to work in the morning. Chappell Roan being so vocal about the darker aspects of her life doesnโ€™t fit within their box of what a pop artist should be a so they donโ€™t know how to handle it. Instead they choose to live in their bubble of manufactured happiness and will attack anything that goes against that.
[Simon MacEwan @theblastedheath]
Punk and Metal people also tend to have politics that are a bit further from the mainstream, and are used to feeling extremely ambivalent at best about political candidates, so what Chappell has been saying seems perfectly reasonable.[7]

Example Fanworks

Fanfiction

Vids

Meta

VMAs

Cosplay

Fanart

VMA Performance

Gallery

Graphics and Gifsets

Other

[youreonyourownkid]
so called free thinkers when h-o-t t-o g-o you can take me hot to go
[slightlyobsessedwitheverything]
: #๐Ÿ™Œ๐Ÿ™†โ€โ™€๏ธ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™€๏ธ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™€๏ธ๐Ÿ™†โ€โ™€๏ธ๐Ÿ’โ€โ™€๏ธ๐Ÿ™†โ€โ™€๏ธ #๐Ÿซต๐Ÿฅซ๐ŸŽฌ๐Ÿ‘ฉ๐Ÿ”ฅโœŒ๏ธ๐Ÿƒโ€โ™€๏ธโ€โžก๏ธ[8]
[youreonyourownkid]
amazing work thank you[9]

Links & Resources

References

  1. ^ Examples of TikTok edits: One, Two, Three
  2. ^ "Kase Wickman, 'For Kamala Harris, First Came Charli XCX. Then Beyoncรฉ. Now the Campaign Is Chappell Roan-ing', Vanity Fair, July 24 2024". Archived from the original on 2024-07-24.
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ Comment on chappell roan keeps doubling down: "you creep me out" ๐Ÿ˜ฌ
  5. ^ "Socialists, communists, and anarchists understood Chappell loud and clear the first time around. Liberals continue to misunderstand literally anything a person left of them says and don't like being reminded that there are people out there more steadfast in their principles." - Comment on D'angelo's Chappell Roan video Deserves Critique
  6. ^ D'angelo's Chappell Roan video Deserves Critique (Oct 2024) by Happy Pancake
  7. ^ [2]
  8. ^ https://slightlyobsessedwitheverything.tumblr.com/post/755558419729186816
  9. ^ Tumblr post, Archived version by youreonyourownkid. Posted 9 July 2024.
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