On the night of February 7, Super Bowl 50 brought some sartorial gems, from Lady Gaga's subtle tribute to the late David Bowie, to Bruno Mars' retro hip-hop attire, to Blue Ivy's rainbow jacket. However, when it came to Beyoncé's performance at Super Bowl 50, the internet showed its two faces: one was supportive, praising Beyoncé's outfit as a nod to Michael Jackson's 13 years earlier Super Bowl show tribute. This is abhorrent as social media increasingly criticizes Beyoncé for looking a little too fat.
For over 12 hours, Twitter kept flooding us with comments like, “Beyoncé is fat and I’m glad they only gave her one song,” and “How did Beyoncé get fat? ?I thought she was vegetarian” “Beyoncé stumbles during squat at Super Bowl halftime show, dragging others down with her fat butt” Search “Beyoncé Fat Super Bowl” on social media platforms. , you will find a lot of vitriol in it.
Aside from the fact that no one has the right to critically dissect another person's body, there are some fundamental problems with this comment. 1. Beyoncé is not fat. Certainly not by any clinical standards or body mass index standards I've seen, nor by the personal standards of any left-hemisphere logical person. 2. Calling someone "fat" or telling them they "look fat" is not an insult in itself. It only becomes one when we allow its pejorative use to impact us negatively, and when the term is applied to people who do not exist within a fat body and do not identify with that specific identity.
Unfortunately, we don't yet live in a world that realizes that being fat doesn't necessarily equal an insult. Even Jennifer Lawrence—who the universe loves to call her a body-positive role model—said to Barbara Walters, “I just don’t think it’s okay to call someone fat on TV Should be illegal." I don't doubt she means well in her own J. Law way (the rest of the interview makes some valid points about taking responsibility for the media's influence on younger generations). But personally, I don't think she's right. It shouldn't be "illegal" to call someone fat. Doing so only further shames fat bodies and suggests to younger generations and everyone else that fatness is always bad. However, I do think we should change the way we use the word.
The problem with calling someone “fat” when they don’t actually have any visible fat on their body is that we further narrow the scope of “acceptable body types.” Beyoncé's legs may be "thick" — just like the legs of a great dancer, she no doubt puts in a lot of exercise to pull off those killer moves we see in "Formation." But her belly is flat. Her waist is very thin. She doesn't have an obvious double chin. Her body most likely has nothing to do with the body of the teenage girl who struggled to love her pronounced abdominal contours because the cafeteria bully called her "fat." Nor is her body particularly relevant to most obesity activists, who are working to reclaim the word after decades of hearing it used only in condemnatory connotations.
I don’t know how many people would agree with the Twitter haters on this. I don't know anyone who thinks "fat" when they see a picture of Yonce in a leather jumpsuit. However, perhaps because she has more pronounced curves than most women we're used to seeing in media streams, many people chose to denigrate her body as somehow "not enough." By implying that Beyoncé is fat in a culture that primarily views fatness as ugly, undesirable, unhealthy, lazy, disgusting, unemployed, etc., we are implying that everyone with a body like hers or larger must also possess these characteristics . A lot of people are called "fat," "bad," "ugly," and those words don't really apply.
But as a self-identified fat woman, my problem goes beyond “Beyoncé isn’t fat.” It's obvious she's not, and anyone I care about would probably agree. My problem is that the more we continue to use fat as a means of verbally abusing someone, and the more we apply it to people who cannot attest to the experience of living in a fat body, the experience of living in said fat body becomes The more ineffective it seems to become. The more we start to lose something, it becomes an identity for many of us who care about body positivity and fat positivity.
A common mantra found online is: My body does not define me. Of course, humans have countless traits, quirks, likes and dislikes. For some people, not wanting to be defined by their body may mean not wanting to be viewed by their body and nothing more. But in conversations with many active obesity activists and supporters, I hear more often than not an acknowledgment that fatness can be a positive defining characteristic, if you simply think of it as such.
As I began to re-appreciate my fatness as something I could actually love—something that made me feel beautiful, strong, and empowered—I no longer viewed it as a potentially harmful word. If anyone wants to call me fat, they are free to do so. I wouldn't take it as an insult, even if that's what it was intended to do, because I don't believe it is an insult. Through my work, I, like many, hope to help more people achieve the same goals.
As musician Beth Ditto told the Advocate in 2012, she welcomes people "talking about her body as much as her music" because her talent and her image aren't just "about the music." , but also “related to political information.” So I welcome people calling me fat because that's who I am and I'm not ashamed of it. Like I'm a tall Latino, a fan of folk music, a nerd, a lover of scrunchies.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not waiting for the day when women who aren’t fat at all and enjoy a certain amount of skinny privilege stop calling themselves that. That doesn’t mean I won’t wait for the day when my identity is no longer a part of their negative self-talk. Or part of Twitter’s fuel for punishing those who don’t identify with my identity or the bodies of my fellow fat-positive supporters.
In fact, people still view obesity as synonymous with “I feel ugly today.” It's still used by trolls who want to claim certain celebrities are ugly because they differ slightly from the thin, straight, white, athletic beauty tropes being thrown at us from every corner. It's still being assigned to people who actually have no idea what it's like to live as a fat person in a world that hates fat people. It is still used as a lesson of sorts - the word means to tell children and others what they should not do or aspire to do if they want to be accepted.
Beyoncé is not fat. But even so, her talent will not be affected. Her ability to sing, dance, inspire, and fight will not suddenly disappear. Whether she gains weight is no one’s business and does not affect her role as a performer. It also doesn’t take away from the fact that she encourages women of color to live without apology.
Beyoncé is not fat. She was not the spokesperson for this identity, so many people finally began to embrace it despite the oppression they had been and continue to be oppressed against. But she is indeed a talented person. And one who continues to kill no matter how his body changes.
Beyoncé is not fat. But I and many others are. We have the power to stop letting this word become an insult. We have the ability to see it as a trait, an identity, or something inconsequential—whatever feels right.