All About That Bass Analysis

1980 Words4 Pages

aitlin Whitten
Professor Dye
1304.35
April 29, 2016
“Anaconda” and “All About That Bass”: Normalizing Skinny Shaming Media has a huge impact on our society. We are constantly surrounded by the media and feel the effects of its influence. We watch television. We read magazines. We subscribe to newspapers. We listen to music. We come in contact with countless forms of media everyday. What many of us do not realize though, is that all the commonplace media that we encounter can have drastic and dangerous impacts on the way we view the world and ourselves. Much of this media has positive effects, such as keeping people informed about news and the happenings around the world. However, recent music is beginning to take a dangerous turn that will …show more content…

Dana Olivier, a fashion and beauty expert for the Huffington Post, recounts her previous struggles with skinny shaming in her post “Skinny Shaming Sucks Too, Ya Know”. Olivier references two particular media incidents that are prime examples of “skinny-shaming”. The first of these is popular comedian Mo’Nique and her famous comedy sketch shaming skinnier women. The comedian calls skinny women “‘evil’”. (Olivier), and attacks them with cruel jokes, to which the audience responds by laughing and applauding. Although Mo’Nique’s sketch is older than the recent body positive movement, it addresses a problem that has been present in our society for many years. As evidenced by this popular sketch and its reception, skinny-shaming is thought of as acceptable by our society. This problem began a long time ago, but is beginning to grow at an alarming rate as the body acceptance movements gain popularity, as evidenced by mainstream music by Minaj and Trainor adopting the skinny shaming …show more content…

This influence and promotion that skinny-shaming is a norm will only increase this growing problem. Lyrics shaming skinnier women like “Anaconda”’s repetition of “fuck them skinny bitches” contribute to the internalization of the idea that it is acceptable and normal to body shame skinnier women. This internalization of the ideas through music leads to much greater damage than external pressures like family pressure or peer

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