It started on 13th March 2021, when a Twitter account that no longer exists (@thering26) tweeted four images of Uma Thurman, from, in order: Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Batman & Robin. The caption? “Uma Thurman will always understand the assignment.”
The tweet blew up and imitations soon appeared. From the next day, Twitter started using variations of the phrase "she always understands the assignment" to praise actors like Zoe Saldana, Viola Davis and Stanley Tucci. More iterations followed, expanding to fictional characters like the Bratz dolls. A new meme format was officially born.
On the very slim chance that this phrase has passed you by, to “understand the assignment” basically means to have a clear grasp of what a moment requires and what your audience wants from you. When it comes to celebrities, the proverbial assignment could be a song, a film role, a performance, an outfit or even a reaction gif. At its core, the statement compliments versatility: think Lady Gaga making pop music, dueting jazz with Tony Bennett and being Oscar-nominated for film roles at the same time. But it’s also used to describe people who deliver one specific vibe consistently well, like Adele’s mastery of heartbreaking ballads and Jennifer Coolidge’s entire filmography. (Both of which, not uncoincidentally, also remind me of a similar meme: “I’m gonna give the gays everything they want.”)
2021 has become the year of “understanding the assignment.” When red carpet events finally returned, it felt like every media outlet with an ageing millennial social manager was posting variations on those three words ad nauseum. With an event like the Met Gala, which has an official theme, this felt slightly more appropriate. But the widespread use of the phrase after, say, the Emmy Awards, suggested that the meme had been diluted to the point where it’s now used to describe pretty much anything we have a liking for. This week, my Spotify Wrapped was even telling me I had “always understood the assignment” this year by… listening to music. Writer Sean O’Neill jokingly remarked on the term’s subjective flimsiness while defending Ed Sheeran’s song “Overpass Graffiti: “Had it been recorded by Carly Rae Jepsen, middle-manager gay guys in knitwear would post on Twitter that she ‘understood the assignment’ until 2035,” he wrote for Gawker.
It’s true that this phrase has become gradually more overused and annoying. But the meme format’s viral popularity this year, particularly to describe celebrities, represents a noticeable shift in our attitudes towards fame and life as we left the trauma of 2020 behind.
Looking back to spring last year, the early stages of the pandemic were defined by celebrities not understanding the proverbial assignment. When they weren’t breaking Covid restrictions (Rita Ora, I’m looking at you), famous people were giving us cringe-worthy moments like the infamous “Imagine” video. If cheerily singing John Lennon as ordinary people lost their jobs wasn’t bad enough, millionaire Arnold Schwarzenegger took it upon himself to urge his followers to “stay home” from his mansion (while sitting in a hot tub smoking a cigar, as you do). With the rare exception of Britney Spears—who offered to buy stuff for fans who were struggling—celebrities seemed unable to work out what people wanted from them.
It has been said many times that 2020 was the year that the “relatable celebrity” finally died. That 21st-century phenomenon was spearheaded by reality stars like the Kardashians and supposedly “unfiltered” actors like Jennifer Lawrence and Ryan Reynolds. The Kardashians’ lives were different to most of ours, yet their constant cycle of arguing and reconciling was oddly familiar and, crucially for them, very monetisable. But Covid brought this era to a screeching end: nothing summed up the huge gulf between reality TV’s First Family and the fans who made them famous quite like Kim Kardashian’s “humble” mid-pandemic 40th birthday getaway to a private island. In 2021, there was a continued rejection of “relatable” public figures, like Ellen DeGeneres and Chrissy Teigen, who seemingly didn’t get the memo to immediately cease and desist from portraying themselves that way. Last year, Vice’s Emma Garland bemoaned that the fun of fame had “lost its currency.” Now that Covid had underlined that celebrities aren't “just like us,” she asked: “can we go back to fame being fun again?”
The adoration of celebrities who “understand the assignment” suggests that, yes, fame can now be fun again. From Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's ridiculously horny summer of love, to Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac’s viral red carpet chemistry, the overdue return of the completely ludicrous Lady Gaga press tour, and pretty much everything Harry Styles does, there is a newfound embrace of spectacle. Celebrities no longer need to pretend to be “just like us,” because our relationship with them is now primarily driven by a desire for them to unleash their main character syndrome and entertain us.
Even reality TV has become more theatrical. Netflix’s Selling Sunset, with its noughties-style editing and obvious storylining, reflects our acceptance of artifice for entertainment’s sake. In a throwback to the original structured reality series The Hills, which was also created by Adam DiVello, the show thrives off its barely-hidden fakeness. The Cut describedSelling Sunset’s breakout star, Christine Quinn—who we often see stepping out of a yellow Lamborghini in sky-high heels, strutting around palatial Hollywood homes and winding up her co-stars—as someone who “understands the assignment.” Quinn earned this accolade by giving fans what she knows they want from her: a well-dressed antagonist who clearly enjoys playing the villain role.
“Understands the assignment” will soon be replaced by another of-the-moment term. But its popularity this year highlights that, for a brief second, we’ve embraced the idea that fame—just like life—can be fun and performative. And celebrity relatability might not be dead, necessarily. Perhaps it’s more that we’re currently relating to different things, like the desire to let loose and seize the moment. After 18 months of a pandemic, during which our behaviours have been monitored and restricted, the spectacle and theatrics of fame have helped us to understand that our real “assignment” is to actively enjoy life right now.
