Music: "All About That Bass" by Meghan Trainor

A "Bass" Step to Beauty Acceptance

By Sarah Schwister
QuailBellMagazine.com

Meghan Trainor’s hit song “All About That Bass,” has been booming and blasting through radio speakers all summer, drawing listeners and critics in alike. With over eleven million hits on her music video on YouTube (and climbing) and number eight on the Billboard’s Top 100, it makes you wonder, what is all the commotion about?

It’s a positive, mainstream, easy to understand body acceptance piece. And the best part: It’s taking off like wildfire.

“Yeah, it’s pretty clear, I ain’t a size two,” is one of the first lines in the song. Why is the acceptance of bigger ladies such a positive thing? Because all people should be treated as people, no matter what they look like.

The power of this mainstream hit is that ideally people will hear more about being accepting of people who are bigger built, especially the ladies. Bloggers who do “not understanding the fat acceptance movement” will hopefully “understand” a bit better that some things are beyond our control. We don’t chose what family we are born into, what our skin color is (no, tanning doesn’t count), what sex we are born with, or where we'll grow up. Songs like this—ones with a positive message—not only call attention to the fact that it's not bad to look different but that all people are people.

So, she ain’t a size two, and tell all those skinny bitches—hey, it sounds like Trainor is skinny shaming. Could she be? There is a thin woman dancing in the candy pop pink music video in a blue dress and plastic wrap generally getting out “booty shake’d” by the heavier woman. Although skinny shaming is a factor, it's not a major point of the song (and she does say she is just kidding). The song is validation for women who are curvier, who in our current culture don’t tend to receive many props. That validation is a daily thing for the more culturally accepted, skinnier, commonly attractive women so much so that they don’t often realize it. Why not pass the baton around to all women rather than keeping it in the secluded section of “beautiful” women?  

Of course, this validation comes from, you guessed it, men:

“But I can shake it, shake it, like I’m supposed to do.
'Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase, 
All the right junk in all the right places."

Why should you need attention from men to feel good about yourself? Now I might be crossing a line here, but why shouldn’t they feel happy about (respectful) attention? It is nice to know that there are people out there attracted to people like you, no matter what you look like. It just goes back to the idea that, “Hey, we are human, too.” 

It just seems unfair that a fun, fizzy mainstream song is body positive and yet there are complaints that it isn’t body positive enough. Yes, the song tell woman that validation comes from within; yes, there is the line that could be perceived as skinny shaming. But at least this a step in the right direction.

“'Cause every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top.”

#Real #MeghanTrainor #Music #Bass #MusicVideo #Body #BodyAcceptance #BodyPositivity
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