A Moment for Mariah: Notes on Bipolar Discourse and Diva Time

This article uses the pop icon Mariah Carey’s 2018 revelation that she has bipolar-II disorder to open up a theorization of diva and bipolar time. It argues that intrinsic to the affective and performative milieus of contemporary diva culture is an anticipatory and stylized expression of bipolar-II that can be read through the pop singer’s oeuvre and in particular in her public appearances prior to her disclosure and spanning live performance, reality television, music video, and promotional events. Focusing on two strategies that could be misrecognized as symptoms of madness or mania—the deployment of multiple media personalities and multiple media temporalities—this article reads Mariah’s mediated “moments” as forms of resistance to the raced and gendered demands of late capitalist celebrity culture.