Latest news with #YouCan'tStoptheBeat
The Guardian
17-03-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
The thin-obsessed world is growing more vicious by the minute. But fat people aren't going anywhere
A strange paradox about being fat is how, at the same time as people can't seem to see past your fatness, you can also somehow be invisible. For some, your fatness becomes the only thing about you, the only quality you have. My fatness causes adults to laugh or sneer or hurl abuse in the street, or to say horrible depraved things online. Strangers hate my extra flesh so much that they can't help but regularly inform me about it as I'm tweeting, walking home, standing in a mall, ordering a drink at a bar – or once, entering my own front door. I can't remember every one of the numerous public incidents but I do remember the first time it happened. I was a (lonely) 14-year-old waiting for the bus with a bunch of other kids at 8:30am, and men drove past and shouted 'WHALE' at me. It was humiliating, it was stupid (I am clearly a land animal), and in my memory it was the sharp beginning of my life in a fatphobic world. It was the beginning of fatphobia fundamentally changing who I was, who I was growing into, planting seeds that would affect me for decades. Shortly after that, I stopped being able to do public speaking, and even now I have to drug myself, my body going into flight mode when I put her in front of a crowd. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Yet even with all this painful visibility, invisibility is equally bad. A small amount is self-inflicted – the tactics you teach yourself, trying to shrink yourself in spaces and not alert people to the existence of your body. But invisibility is also constantly dished out to us by other people. It's from those who won't say something mean, but will pretend not to see you. So many people don't see you as someone worth engaging with. It is not just personal, it's societal too. The rise of Ozempic in combination with an already extremely thin-obsessed world means that there are almost no fat – or even kind-of-fat – people on any sort of screen. This week, Vogue and Gigi Hadid – obviously not people I would rely on for body inclusivity – went a step further in the wrong direction by doing a Hairspray-themed cover and spread, including posting a full lip-sync of the song 'You Can't Stop the Beat' online. If you aren't familiar with Hairspray, it's one of the only musicals in existence featuring fat leads, and a big part of the story is fatness being spotlighted. Vogue's cover and lip-sync featured only thin people. The fat characters were played by Gigi Hadid, Cole Escola (love) and Laverne Cox (love), and everyone else involved was also thin. To be completely and utterly cut out of one of the only fat-focused stories is not just disappointing; it's a really bad sign. It seems like any acknowledgment that fat people exist in the world, and that it's OK for us to exist, is sliding back to nil. All kinds of people hate fatness. I have been prepared for that; I expect it. What I was less prepared for was a world where normal, nice, thoughtful, politically aware, outspoken people seem to care about inclusivity in all areas – except this one. Non-thin people are everywhere, our experiences are real and important, and yet, flicking through programmes for writers' festivals, women's festivals, arts festivals, I notice a consistent distinct lack of opportunities to discuss fatness or body image – in a time when it is increasingly necessary to address. These aren't men on the street flicking a lit cigarette at me for walking near them (real story). It's people who are otherwise kind and empathetic and knowledgable and politically aware, who aren't engaged with this issue. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion At the moment it feels like we have lost every step of the hard-won progress of the fat movement, like chubby Sisyphus watching the rock roll back down. If you spend any time on TikTok or social media now, you'll see disgusting, awful, hateful, fatphobic comments on every post from a woman over size 12. Fatphobia is an ugly, blunt weapon wielded against people of all sizes. Almost every woman I know has had issues with hating her body, at literally every size and every age. There's been a recent rise on TikTok of young fat girls doing videos crying about how much they hate their life, alongside a very scary rise of pro-anorexia accounts, girls obsessed with being as thin as possible. It's a throwback to the heroin chic, deathly anti-fat era of the 90s and 00s, and it's dangerous for everyone. These teenage girls are at no risk of ever actually getting fat, yet the conditions of our world have made them dread it to the point of already starving themselves. The thin-obsessed world is growing more unflinchingly vicious to fat people again, while others stand by and do nothing to stall it. When you hate our bodies, you are teaching everyone to hate theirs. I implore people to start thinking about this, both broadly and specifically. We need people carefully considering how we portray and include different kinds of bodies – and what we are saying when we don't. If you are someone who cares about us as people, equal to others – now is the time to prove it. We may be big, we may be numerous, but we desperately need allies. Fat people aren't going anywhere; we're not going to stop existing because you abuse us or exclude us. It's just going to make everything worse, for everyone. We need you to make yourselves bigger with us, to take up space with us. It's time to open up your big fat mouths. Rebecca Shaw is a writer based in Sydney
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Vogue's 'Hairspray' casts Laverne Cox, Cole Escola (and no fat actors?)
Vogue can't stop the beat! In a new commercial from Vogue and Marc Jacobs, Gigi Hadid, Cole Escola, Laverne Cox, and more come together for a fashionable tribute to the classic John Waters musical Hairspray. Featuring choreography, great fashion, and a gaggle of stars, the commercial has Hadid and company lip-synching along to the closing number from the musical. - YouTube The commercial, which uses "You Can't Stop the Beat" from the 2007 film version of the musical, starts with Gigi Hadid taking the roles of Tracy Turnblad and Penny Lou Pingleton (although she looks more like Amber von Tussle, who she played in a production when she was age 9), with Alton Mason joining as Seaweed Stubbs. When Tracy's mother Edna joins in, Oh, Mary! star Cole Escola steps up and lip-synchs for their life. The next superstar to join the tribute is Laverne Cox, who steps into Queen Latifah's role of Motormouth Maybelle. Some have pointed out the irony of doing a tribute to Hairspray without any fat people, as the original movie, Broadway musical, and movie musical are about Tracy Turnblad and her mother Edna who find happiness and acceptance as two fat women living in a society that centers thinness. "gigi hadid and vogue did a tribute to hairspray and 'you can't stop the beat' without any fat people in one X user wrote. "So you mean to tell me Vogue magazine didn't think to hire one plus size model for a HAIRSPRAY tribute but picks *checks notes* Gigi Hadid to be Tracy Turnblad. 🤨🤨🤨," another wrote.
NBC News
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- NBC News
Vogue's 'Hairspray' video starring model Gigi Hadid left many wondering: What happened to the plus-size message?
Vogue's recent homage to 'Hairspray' owes a lot of the hallmarks of the beloved musical: a catchy song, big hairdos and 1960s fashion. But many viewers noticed one prominent part of the Broadway show and movie was omitted: plus-size people. The video, which was released online across Vogue's social media pages and on its website Tuesday, is tied to its April cover story on Gigi Hadid, who is known for modeling for brands such as Victoria's Secret and Calvin Klein. Equality and representation are two core themes of "Hairspray," which follows Tracy Turnblad, a self-described 'pleasantly plump' teen in Baltimore in the 1960s, as she chases her dream of performing on a TV dance show while also aiming to integrate it. Vogue's feature is titled 'Gigi Hadid Can't Stop the Beat,' a play on one of the popular numbers from 'Hairspray,' titled 'You Can't Stop the Beat.' In the video, Hadid lip-syncs to the song before she is joined by actor Laverne Cox, comedian Cole Escola, designer Marc Jacobs and model-actor-dancer Alton Mason. The video, a full 3-minute, 17-second version of which is posted on YouTube, mirrors the '60s aesthetic from the movie and the Broadway show. Some people online expressed frustration that most people in the video are thin, which they said defeats the musical's entire message of acceptance. Others shared concerns that Vogue's cover shoot is the latest indicator that society has moved away from body positivity, a movement centered on self-acceptance regardless of body type. 'Sorry but anyone who knows Hairspray knows this is an INSANE campaign to not even [have] one plus size person in this? What is going on...' Remi Bader, an influencer known for promoting body positivity to her millions of social media followers, wrote Thursday on her Instagram story. 'It's wild because I'm literally a plus size model who PLAYED TRACY TURNBLAD THREE TIMES and somehow I'm seeing zero plus size representation, do I need to fill you in on the plot of hairspray?!' Bailey Scaman, a model, wrote in a comment on Vogue's Instagram post. Representatives for Vogue, Hadid, Cox, Escola, Jacobs and Mason did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The April shoot comes just months after Vogue Business published its 2025 spring/summer size inclusivity report. It wrote that 'progress has stalled and we are facing a worrying return to using extremely thin models, amid the Ozempic boom,' referring to using the popular drug semaglutide for weight loss. It said it analyzed 'every runway show and presentation featured on Vogue Runway from the official New York, London, Milan and Paris schedules to calculate the proportion of total looks that are straight, mid and plus-size' and found that less than 1% of the more than 8,700 runway models were plus size. In the past year, many influencers who are known for championing body positivity have sounded the alarm over what they say has been a return to 'thinness' as the norm. Some people responding to the Vogue video echoed similar concerns. 'If I learned anything from Vogue's hairspray cover it's that thinness is definitely back in and we've regressed so much that even tokenistic body diversity is gone,' a TikTok user wrote in the text of a video that had been viewed over 1.5 million times as of Thursday. 'How did a whole crew of people okay that?' In her Vogue interview, Hadid said that she 'grew up doing musical theater' and that she played Amber Von Tussle, Tracy's bully/nemesis, in a performance of the musical when she was 9. 'I love all things musical theater,' she said. Director Bardia Zeinali, who directed Hadid on a 2018 'Beetlejuice'-themed shoot, was the Vogue video shoot director. In her Instagram caption sharing the Vogue video, Hadid wrote that the two 'have been dreaming (yapping) of our own take on 'Hairspray' for years, and this @voguemagazine day was all the things that make our job special— all the things little Gigi dreamt it could be! How much more fun could we have showing you this season's dresses of 2025 than takin you back to the 60's?!' She ended the post appearing to allude to any online haters, writing: 'To the neg's of the world.... Just a reminder that YOU CAN'T STOP THE BEAT ;).' The post was published to her page before any reaction online had circulated. Zeinali did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an Instagram post sharing the Vogue video, she called the experience 'Hands down, the most exciting and satisfying project I've worked on, with the most fulfilling creative process ever.'
Buzz Feed
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Let's Talk About The Gigi Hadid "Hairspray" Cover Where Everyone Is Thin
So, there's a new fashion-filled tribute to Hairspray courtesy of Vogue starring... Gigi Hadid. You're likely aware that in the John Waters movie, the movie musical, and the Broadway show, the lead character of Hairspray is Tracy Turnblad. She's a teenager who initially isn't allowed on her local dance television show because of her larger size. Arguably a major theme of the show is the solidarity and overlap that can exist between fat people and the fight for racial equality. Now, Gigi is Vogue's latest cover star and is at the center of their latest video, "Gigi Hadid Can't Stop the Beat" (a cover of "You Can't Stop the Beat"). 'I love all things musical theater," she told the publication, noting that she apparently played Amber Von Tussle when she was nine. Gigi initially performs the segment of the song that the character of Penny sings. She is then styled in a wig reminiscent of Tracy's iconic look. Broadway star Cole Escola also makes an appearance as Tracy's mother, Edna, but omits the line, "You just can't stop my knife and fork when I see a Christmas ham" — presumably as Cole is straight-sized. There's also Laverne Cox as Motormouth Maybelle, a character who sings an entire song about being "Big, Blonde and Beautiful." You might see a slight issue here, which is that among the cover's 16 dancers and four guest stars, none of them are fat. No bigger bodies are focussed paying tribute to a story about size discrimination. It's worth noting that Tracy is one of the only major musical theater roles available for fat performers in an industry rife with size discrimination. Sure, this is just a tribute and not a full production — but, given the weight stigma that also exists in the fashion industry, wouldn't it have been great to showcase bigger models? Or, if they were really that against it another musical?
