When I began thinking about how I would approach the Original Plagiarism, I realized I wanted to convey a message I felt could be highlighted through this format. One that came to mind was the way the media so heavily villainizes women and spreads this ideology to the public. One instance of this that had particularly bothered me was the way the media treated pop star Chappel Roan over the past year. I considered how I would highlight the discrepancy between the way male and female artists were discussed and wanted to compare the two by using another example. I settled on Chris Brown, an artist who had continued to have hit songs and tours despite his history of abusing women and being extremely violent. I decided my final project would be two articles, one about Chris Brown using lines from articles disparaging Chappel Roan, and the other about Chappel Roan consisting of remarks made by articles on Chris Brown.
Chappel Roan, an artist known for her extravagant performances heavily linked to her identity as a queer woman, has recently faced enormous backlash over arguably frivolous instances. Because of this it was widely regarded that Chappel was ungrateful for her fans, as well as “difficult” and unhappy with a level of fame she had supposedly “agreed to” by becoming an artist. This backlash was only amplified after soccer star Jorginho Frello accused her of sending a security guard to berate his wife and child in a hotel they happened to be staying at simultaneously. Despite there being no concrete evidence that the security guard was a member of her team, Roan’s character was diminished as the public accepted the claim without question. The guard eventually came forward, confirming he was working for another artist at the hotel, though this made a much smaller impact than the original accusation. Chappel Roan is frequently portrayed by the media as rude, ungrateful, unlikeable, and so adverse towards people that she would use her personal security to scare a child away.
On the other hand, Chris Brown is an artist who has had a lengthy history of abusing women, arrests, and overall violence. However, his music career has not faltered. In fact, his most recent stadium tour co-headlined with Usher included sold out shows with 566,000 tickets sold in just the first thirteen shows, and a profit of over $100 million for the first ten. His music continues to find praise, despite his past being made public knowledge. In 2025 he won the grammy for “Best R&B album”, and as of 2024 he is tied for 11th in overall artists across all genres with 114.5 million certified digital singles. In May of 2025, not long before Chappel’s experience with Frello, Brown was again arrested in England for an assault he committed in a nightclub. Brown was not as widely criticized as Roan despite the vast difference in extremity.
The difference in reaction to these two instances demonstrates the cruelty and language used by the public towards a female artist who had been both proven innocent and accused of much less than a male artist who had multiple confirmed accusations, including the recent assault. Knowing this, I searched through articles that criticized Chappel Roan for reasons previously mentioned, finding language disparaging her character and actions. I then took the lines and created an article discussing Chris Browns faults. I also found articles describing Chris Brown’s success, stealing sentences from multiple to arrange a new article praising Chappel Roan. In doing so, I aimed to point out that language directed at Roan, a pop star who had committed no serious offenses, could be used to describe a convicted abuser who continues to have a career. Similarly, writing praising Brown could instead be attributed to an innocent female artist. I changed only the pronouns and song/album titles used for clarity, and replaced quotes used in the articles with those that made sense in context and were accredited to the correct person.
Looking at my articles through a journalism lens, they are entirely plagiarism. Not a single sentence or headline was my original structure or in my words. However, I believe the way I arranged them properly coveys my goal to point out the misogynistic way in which the public and media treats women in comparison to the grace they give to men of a much greater fault. In the way that I was able to successfully illustrate the message through my original idea, my work is original, even so through the arrangement of sources.