Is It Time To “Cancel” Lizzo?
Some people seem to think so …
Lizzo is a multiple Grammy award-winning, Black singer. Some well-known songs in her repertoire include: About Damn Time, 2 Be Loved, Truth Hurts and Good As Hello.
She is indeed a beautiful plus-size woman, but despite having great music and incredible skills in playing multiple musical instruments, including the flute, she is regularly body-shamed by online trolls but also by other celebrities the likes of Kanye West (Ye).
Lizzo has brushed off these comments elegantly, but the patriarchy that wants its celebrities to be thin or at a maximum a little “thick”, like Beyoncé, will never accept that a plus-sized Black woman can not only be successful but also start a global movement to get big women of all ethnicities to love and accept the body that they are in.
You see, this doesn't bode well with them always dictating to us women what the size of our bodies should be.
The patriarchy’s ongoing pressure on us women to look a certain way is the source of an eating disorder pandemic of epic proportions. It has driven many young girls and women to starve themselves.
As time has gone by, Lizzo’s has garnered a strong following on social media. On her Instagram account, provocatively named lizzobeeating (lizzo be eating), she has over 13.5 million followers.
More often than not, young women are thanking her for showing that “Big girls are beautiful too”.
Her reputation as the most famous celebrity to stand up and represent women with bigger bodies is clear, yet yesterday, three of her former dancers accused her of body shaming, as well as of sexual, racial, and religious harassment. In short, a host of unethical behaviors.
It has come as a shock, so much so that Beyoncé who usually mentions Lizzo’s name at her Renaissance tour concerts, omitted to mention her at last night’s performance. Speculation is that she didn’t want to be associated with the pop star after this news got out.
According to the lawsuit, at one point, one of Lizzo’s dancers gained weight. She alleges that Lizzo questioned her commitment to her job when she did which made her feel that Lizzo was body-shaming her. I call total BS on this specific accusation. You can’t accuse someone of a crime because they made you feel a certain way.
The only way you can say Lizzo body-shamed you is if she used specific language to humiliate you because of the size of your body. To my knowledge, that wasn’t the case.
The accusations go on to say that Lizzo pressured one of the dancers to touch a nude body in a club while they were on tour in Amsterdam. Now, this is serious and Lizzo should never have done that.
Another accusation is that she forced her dancers to engage in a strenuous 12-hour audition after she accused them of drinking without any proof. This again isn’t good.
Lizzo’s dance troop captain, Shirlene Quigley, also tried to force evangelize the dancers while pushing her Christian beliefs on them, criticizing those that had had premarital sex and discussing the virginity of one of the performers amongst many other things. Again, this is unacceptable behavior.
All in all, it is clear that Lizzo has made some grave mistakes, and she must pay the price for them, but it is important that she in no way be canceled. I’ve been a big girl several times in my life and the way society fat-shames you without guilt is appalling.
From my extended family, friends, colleagues as well as salespeople in stores, comments about the extra weight I carry are shared with me matter-of-factly. It’s as though they equate plus-sizedness with unattractiveness, and this is not true. Some of the most attractive women I know are plus-sized.
If Marilyn Monroe was alive today, she would be considered plus-size.
All this is to say that we live in a diverse world. Human beings come in all sizes and shapes and we should embrace them as they are.
We were never supposed to be a “one size” species, so why do we want to fit all women, into one tiny, emaciated size?
I am always flabbergasted when I try to shop in certain stores like Zara and realize that they don’t go above a size 10. Like really?
I think that as the world is changing, we need to let people be who they are. Trying to force people to look a certain way and be a certain weight is directly linked to what the patriarchy wants — I would even go so far as to say, what the white patriarchy wants.
We should leave people be, but most importantly, we shouldn’t cancel Lizzo because she needs to make our little girls and even our little boys feel comfortable in their bodies and love themselves.
Thank you for reading my perspective.
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