Why is "aspiring" a dirty word?

Aspiring: directing one's hopes or ambitions toward becoming a specified type of person.

Amateur: a person who engages in a pursuit, especially a sport, on an unpaid rather than a professional basis.

Professional: engaged in a specified activity as one's main paid occupation rather than as a pastime.

I got into an interesting discussion today about this rather elderly tweet from an actress named Lolia Etomi, which was only recently brought to my attention. She wrote:

I'm an actor. Professionally. I even did extra & got the degree & everything. So please Fam/Friends, don't call me an "aspiring actress." The career isn't only legitimized by fame. After you pass the bar, I call you a lawyer. You're not just 'aspiring' before you become partner.

As you can see, she's frustrated, and possibly insulted and even hurt, by people calling her an "aspiring" actress and just wants to be called an "actress," full stop. I looked up her IMDB and while she does indeed have extensive high-level training in acting, she has just two credits, both for short films.

Now, I am not knocking short films. Hell no. I have been in short films, I've PA'd on short films and I have even paid others to PA or work as extras on them. Short films are a legitimate medium, actually a vital medium since they help train the next generation of actors, directors, writers, etc., and can also be a great forum for experimental work (see, for example, "Calle Lejos" on Amazon Prime). But if you're a film/TV actress -- as opposed to stage -- and your resume consists of two short films, you aren't paying your bills through acting. You aren't even paying for your coffee through acting. You want to be doing this, you are ASPIRING to do it, but you're not quite there yet.

Obviously I understand her frustration in the sense that acting is the thing she's dedicated her life and passion to and she wants to be regarded as an actress with no qualifiers. She feels like she's being condescended when people precede “actress” with “aspiring.” However, the example she uses in the Tweet strikes me as a logical fallacy/false comparison, and one which is indicative of a larger societal problem that I think needs some discussion. Ms. Etomi says fame doesn't legitimize the work, and she's absolutely right about that. A career is NOT legitimized by fame, not even a Hollywood career, where most “working actors” are still unknown to the public by name, and sometimes by face as well. But a career is legitimized by work, especially paid work, and that's where her lawyer comparison falls apart. To quote her own example, which is actually not a very good one, a practicing lawyer is just that -- a practicing lawyer. He has a degree, but he also has a practice, a job, a paycheck. If he doesn't, he is still a lawyer, but he gets the qualifier "unemployed." Ms. Etomi has training -- she has the degree -- but she doesn't yet have the paycheck. It's a distinction with a difference.

There has gotta be some kind of a bar you've got to meet before you can call yourself a real member of a profession, and in acting and most creative, artistic, or musical work that bar is, I believe, actually getting work and actually being paid for doing it. Not necessarily making a living at it, but at least being paid when you do work, and working with some level of frequency. That is, after all, what you're aspiring TO when you become an actor, writer, musician, comedian, etc., etc. That's the bar you're presumably trying to meet when you enter the profession.

To quote from my own experience, a lot of writers, including myself, take cheap shots from folks who think if you're not Stephen King or J.K. Rowling you're a deluded phony: but I don't think being called an aspiring actress when you haven't done anything other than a pair of short films qualifies as a cheap shot or an insult. I think it's an accurate assessment of where Ms. Etomi is as an actress at this particular moment of her career. Her problem, as someone pointed out to me today, is that she attaches a stigma to the word "aspiring" that shouldn't be there. In her mind, "aspiring actress" and "wanna-be actress" are the same thing, and that's why (I believe) she feels insulted.

But they are NOT the same thing at all.

If you're a white belt in jiu-jitsu, you have aspirations of being a black belt, but you're not a wanna-be: a wanna-be is someone who wishes and hopes and wants and dreams but doesn't put in the work to get there. Ms. Etomi presumably aspires to be a working actress who makes a living exclusively by acting and doesn't need a day job or a “side hustle.” Terrific. She's obviously willing to put in the work, too -- equally terrific. I hope she destroys Hollywood and wins 4 Oscars and needs dump trucks for all her cash. But I'm not sure she's entitled to demand others remove "aspiring" from "actress" on the basis of a lot of training and 2 short films.

Look at me. I have both an MA and an MFA in writing popular fiction from a very good school. I received an endowed scholarship from my writing program. My first novel was named “Book of the Year.” I have five literary awards, including the BIBA, which is one of the top-10 honors an independent author can receive. I was commissioned to write a screenplay and was paid for it (not paid well, mind you, or even ethically, but I was paid). I get royalty payments every month and have worked four contracted writing jobs this year alone, including one for Netflix. But I don't introduce myself to people as a writer. I introduce myself to people as a freelancer in the entertainment industry, because that's how I make most of my money. The day I make a full living off writing alone is when I will start introducing myself as a writer. It gives me something to ASPIRE to.

Aspiration is a good thing. Aspiration means that one wishes to become more than we presently are, which is probably the most noble state a human can achieve. Aspiration does not make us weak, it is a sign of strength. It is a sign of intelligence, too, in that we have goals, which stupid people almost never do (stupid people have wishes, which are quite different). Aspiration carries with it no taint. It is not the same as being the dreaded “wannabe,” who has a desire for a status but no plan to get there and no discipline to put a plan into effect even if they had one.

I wrote this not as an attack on Ms. Etomi, who is obviously free to feel any way she wants about how she is addressed, but because I feel the larger problem laid bare by the Tweet is one we must answer as a society. It's the idea that we can use this "I identify as X" mentality in aspects of our lives where it's not really up to us to make that identification. I identify as a Cubs fan, but it doesn't mean I can identify as a Cub and go play at Wrigley and collect a nine-figure paycheck for doing so. I can identify as a black belt in jiu-jitsu but if I go to a tournament I will be exposed as a fraud immediately if I am not the genuine article. Hell, I can identify as a Medal of Honor winner or a U.S. Army Ranger or a Navy SEAL if I so choose. I won't do it because I never earned the distinction. There are some titles you can just claim and it legitimately becomes so -- "I'm a Star Trek fan!" -- and there are other titles you actually have to go out there and earn. Simply wanting them is not enough. The stark fact is you are simply not entitled to be addressed by a title you haven't yet achieved.

I wrote this article with some reluctance and have been several months debating with myself whether I ought to publish it. I don't want to be viewed as attacking this young woman who was simply trying to make a point -- a point I'm sure many people agree with. But again, I do feel there are larger issues at stake and one of them is this ridiculous notion that there is no difference between wanting something and achieving it, between wish and reality. (Because, as Abraham Lincoln once noted: "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Five? No. Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.") And perhaps even more importantly, because it casts aspertions on the concept of aspiration which the word does not deserve. I do feel that Ms. Etomi is an aspiring actress, and I do not see the shame in it. Quite the contrary.