Improv: Surviving Nepotism
Sometimes I think I could have pretended to be Jennifer Coolidge’s secret daughter from the beginning, the way my face tends to puff up after a long day at work. If I was Jennifer Coolidge’s secret daughter I wouldn’t have to work at all. I’d get brunch at the Cafe Royal next door before I slouch to New Bond to buy a Burberry Heritage Trench with the performative lining, and the Miu Miu pumps, the overdone and tired ones. You know what I mean, the unfashionable and lazy ones. The satin ones with the ballerina bow.
Someone said they saw Jennifer Coolidge at the Golden Globes after party and said she had to stand there whilst people were oscillating around her, taking so many photos. They said people were doing a lot of touching, and maybe I don’t want to be touched by strangers. But I do want the Miu Miu shoes; I’m undecided. I heard she gets really sick shooting on boats too, but I really want the shoes, and she has a lot of money. I want a better life for my boyfriend and I, I want to buy a place for him, like they say Lily Rose Depp did. She’d been with Timothee Chalamet for like, two months before she convinced her dad to buy her an apartment in West Village. It sits vacant now because they don’t fuck anymore. I used to look like her, but she got cheek implants and I can’t afford those. I bet it’s nice, the apartment. I bet it has real curtains, and I know I could make it a home. Make my boyfriend feel special.
My dad can’t afford to buy me an apartment outright, so I work, and after work I write. I do not think I am doing anything more valuable than what the celebrity children are doing. I am writing something of low worth. I am nothing more than a tabloid artist. The rumour mill told me that Apple Martin, daughter of Gwyneth and the guy from Coldplay, was expelled from Harvard Westlake for racial bullying, so she graduated from Crossroads instead. I respect the lack of an attempt at public morality from the rich blonde teen and I know Apple Martin does not exist in a customer service world. Like any celebrity child, she lives in a place where you can pay money to be racist and to go to Vanderbilt for university, if you were so inclined. The rumour mill told me that Lila Moss fucked whoever plays the abusive guy in Euphoria. I decided she was pretty one day when her face pulsated on an advertising screen high in the clouds of Piccadilly Circus, before heading to work where in one month I will earn maybe half of what Lila Moss earns in a day, knowing she doesn’t care at all if I think she’s boring, or pretty, or a third thing in between. If I was a nepo baby I wouldn’t care at all, I’d stomp my foot clad in Miu Miu and get everything I’ve ever wanted on a whim and everything I’ve ever needed to remain breathing. Only Catholic saints and girls with eating disorders would turn it down because they live with a scarcity mindset.
via Charlotte’s IG
At some point every person should ask themselves their capability to undertake full responsibility of dictating Who Deserves What and Who Doesn’t Deserve Anything. Media darlings, the children of famed artists, are in scrapes online for their lack of dedication to the cause: the stakes are too low, the talent is unnoticeable, the beauty is less striking than is ideal, and we are dissatisfied. We are dissatisfied with their new movie and their clumsy walk on the runway.
Meanwhile, it’s the children of Oxford alums who write for The Guardian, and tax your meagre earnings, but not their own; They decide if your world collapses around you, whether you live or die, but they parade their nepotism only at private members clubs and you are not invited.
Apple Martin should not be able to pay her way out of social crimes but I also don’t know what I’m supposed to do about that. I’m poor and sensitive because I’m an artist and the celebrity children are taking up room in an industry previously indiscriminate of social class. Ideally we would each carry equal burden, a piece of the world each, and build careers upon pillars of honour and honesty, hard work and talent, but if the future of our world is going to solely be determined by ego-stroked descendants of the elite, that idea ceases to be a reality.
I would love to be a nepo baby. I wish not to defend: they do not need my words irregardless, only do I encourage against denial of an already-present reality. I feel bad for Jennifer Coolidge. I would love to be Jennifer Coolidge’s daughter and I would let her stroke my hair. I would hold her dearly to my heart, I think, not only for the pumps or the flat in the city, though should she offer me these things, I’d take them in a heartbeat, because I’m not stupid, only desperate.
Anne Carson once said, “I choose survival. Who doesn’t.”
Charlotte A Steele is a 21-year-old writer based in London. You can find her here.