Step aside Sisyphus, Icarus, Narcissus. Move over Oedipus, Nemesis, Spartacus. Gather round, children. I’ll tell you a little-known Greek myth about a beautiful but weirdly silent Australian architect graduate and collagen enthusiast, who angered the gods of excess and Instagram and was sentenced to an underwear-free existence alongside the world’s foremost bin liner-wearing misogynist, a man who routinely put the rap in claptrap.

Our antiheroes are Kanye Westus and his wife Bianca Censorius (although for the purposes of this discussion we’ll go with their performing names, Kanye West and Bianca Censori). The story has a working title of “All The Embarrassing Things You Have To Do When You Decide To Hitch Your Wagon To A Sexist, Antisemitic Misanthrope In An Audacious Bid To Achieve Fame At All Costs”. Hmmm. It’s possible the working title needs some, well, work.

Kanye West with Bianca Censori on their infamous boat trip in Venice.Credit: YouTube

Our story harkens back to the seventh day of the 12th month on the Kardashian calendar, in the year 2022, after West, a self-described “God vessel”, emerged backlit, having shrugged off the shackles of his marriage to Kim Kardashian and a short-lived US presidential run. From there, he went forth and debuted his new relationship with Censori in the manner of all good biblical figures: by dropping a new track called Censori Overload and declaring war on all “Karens”. (His lyrics need work, incidentally. Rhyming “parents” and “glance”? Who got that one past the censoris? I mean, censors.)

Meanwhile, Kanye. Like the late singer Prince, he was said to prefer a range of other nicknames, although he did break some new ground in this realm, in that his favourites (Ye, Yeezy, Yeezus) all sounded like the noise an old man makes when he’s just about to complete a particularly wet sneeze.

In recent times, he’s parlayed (someone else’s) partial nudity into his rap career. He’s taken disgraceful shots at Jewish people, fetishized blonde gay women, endorsed Donald Trump and described himself as “Shakespeare in the flesh” (presumably the original Shakespeare got there first).

For all this, though, the gods were surprisingly tolerant of West. Last month he briefly overtook Taylor Swift as the most-streamed artist on Spotify globally, although the sudden surge of interest coincided with the release of his new album and came off the back of the anti-Semitic statements that resulted when someone let him out in public without a muzzle.

All of which leads us to Censori. It’s impossible to know what she did to incur the wrath of the gods, such that earlier this year she was seen walking around in public wearing a stuffed toy for a top, or, as the “fashion philosophy” outlined on her website would have it, “consistently pushing boundaries and favouring unconventional cuts”.

She called it “avant-garde”; everywhere else it’s called “grounds for a charge of indecent exposure”. After her beloved took to social media to decree there would be “no pants this year”, she was photographed wearing an elephant’s knee-hi on her head, with the remains of an ill-fitting possum stretched around her chest. To her credit, even she looked sceptical about that one.

QOSHE - There are many ways to become famous. Bianca Censori has chosen one of the worst - Michelle Cazzulino
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There are many ways to become famous. Bianca Censori has chosen one of the worst

11 1
28.03.2024

Step aside Sisyphus, Icarus, Narcissus. Move over Oedipus, Nemesis, Spartacus. Gather round, children. I’ll tell you a little-known Greek myth about a beautiful but weirdly silent Australian architect graduate and collagen enthusiast, who angered the gods of excess and Instagram and was sentenced to an underwear-free existence alongside the world’s foremost bin liner-wearing misogynist, a man who routinely put the rap in claptrap.

Our antiheroes are Kanye Westus and his wife Bianca Censorius (although for the purposes of this discussion we’ll go with their performing names, Kanye West and Bianca Censori). The story has a working title of “All The Embarrassing Things You Have To Do When You Decide To Hitch Your Wagon To A Sexist, Antisemitic Misanthrope In An Audacious Bid To Achieve Fame At All Costs”. Hmmm.........

© The Sydney Morning Herald


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