[todaysdate]
By Eric Blauer
Meghan Trainor’s song: ‘All About The Bass’ heads the top five of Billboard’s top 100 songs for a second straight week. People are loving the song even if some are hating on the conflicting body-positivity claims.
The music industry thrives on controversy and the artists benefit from all the focus on their work. Nothing stirs up the drama more than when people start jiggling the junk in the trunk, be it Miley Cyrus and her twerking phase of going way back to 1992’s Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”. Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Big Butt” anthem was an atrocious song packed full of sexist and profane lyrics but as they all seem to do, it had a catchy tune.
“I like big butts and I can not lie…” – Sir Mix-A-Lot’s song: ‘Baby Got Back’
The ‘All About The Bass’ lyrical lightening rods are the parts of the song that seems to place one’s sense of self-acceptance on what “boys like” and the use of a derogatory word to describe skinny girls.
“Yeah, it’s pretty clear I ain’t no size two
But I can shake it, shake it like I’m supposed to do
‘Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase
And all the right junk in all the right places
…
Yeah, my mama she told me don’t worry about your size
She says, “Boys like a little more booty to hold at night.”
I’m bringing booty back
Go ahead and tell them skinny bitches that
No I’m just playing. I know you think you’re fat
But I’m here to tell ya
Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top”
-Meghan Trainor’s : All About That Bass
I get the feminist cultural critique but part of me feels like the skinny girls seem a bit touchy getting toppled off their haloed thigh-gap thrones for a short while. Being fat has been a status that has brought unending examples of public shaming in all forms of media for decades. It’s the damning ‘mark of Cain’ in teen culture and the plague of the idolatrous ‘youth-worshipping’ adult culture that can’t face the fact of aging.
Many have been fed a cash cow lie from two ends, one promises a fountain of youth and the other promises to save you from old age. Our sacred altars are the multibillion dollar industry of fitness gyms, the plethora of revolving diets, supplement supper zones, surgeries to nip, tuck or plump, weight loss shows that make false promises and a clothing industry that has just started calling a 12 an 11 just to make everyone feel better about themselves.
It’s tough for young people to cultivate a secure sense of personhood in today’s booty battle fox holes. The dream of a peaceful neutral-zone where everyone is accepted just as they are and no one is brutalized for being different would be ideal. But the reality is the Barbies and Kens of the world have been reigning like a privileged aristocracy forever in tinsel town and on main street. Is it any surprise that the masses sometimes rise up in solidarity to claim some of the spot light and spoils for themselves?
I don’t think anyone is building guillotines, they are just blowing off decades of underprivileged steam. Every hunger game has it’s Katniss Everdeen and for many people, Meghan Trainor represents those voices that promise liberty from the overexposed, beauty bourgeois.
It’s unfortunate that we often feel the need to step on others to get higher up the ladder of self aggrandizement but in this case, I get it, even if it isn’t the best way to shine.
The Skinny Girls speak out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-61ESJUWNn0
I just heard this song for the first time yesterday, and it was recommended to me by a mom of teen girls who likes it for the positive body messages. My only argument with it, well, I have a couple, is the sexual binary it espouses, ’cause, trust me, boys aren’t necessarily the only ones who like to hold onto something at night. The other complaint is the use of pejoratives like the B-word which I really wish would just STOP being used by anyone but especially women. That word has been the bane of female existence for a long, long time, and the current trend to using it as a pet name for your BFF’s just sickens me. Anywho, I’m all for positive body images, and anything that lowers the stress level of our teens, girls and boys, but I sure wish songwriters would knock-off the sexual binary language. This song could have been just as funny and pointed without the “get a boy” talk. That message alone puts MORE pressure on a girl, regardless of her sexual orientation.
I agree Jan, there are ways to speak out about body positivity better. But I understand the angst in the song, having walked with people who struggle deeply with the wounds of a society that worships a version of beauty above all else and sacrifices the young on that altar.
Oh, and I watched the video after I wrote my reply, (I’d heard the song many times so I wrote from that basis) and I think there is a portrayal in the song of some LGBTQI behavior…but that’s probably up for interpretation. Anyway, if it is such, then my earlier comment isn’t really correct. 🙁