Toxicity Or True Concern: What Lets Us Talk About Ariana’s Body In The Way That We Do?

Hi, my name is Louise, and I am a survivor of the Kate Moss era of skinny-chic in the nineties. I came of age in a decade that told me a woman’s highest achievement was disappearing, and I absorbed that lesson with uncritical enthusiasm. I also had a dream in those years to write for Heat magazine or People because I was obsessed with the celebrity commentary industrial complex. Who wore what better. Who had the audacity to appear on a beach with cellulite. Who was too thin this month, accompanied by a helpful circle drawn around the offending area of their body. Vapid, yes. But a girl could dream.

Then came body positivity, and I was made to feel ashamed for having had opinions about bodies at all. Suddenly all bodies were beautiful, representation arrived in magazines, and for a brief and genuinely moving period I saw people who looked like me in editorials (Thanks, Lizzo! Wait, is she still canceled?)

Because then body positivity was reframed as promoting unhealthy lifestyles, and the conversation shifted again before anyone had time to digest their full-fat latte. Now we have weight loss injections that nobody admits to taking while simultaneously insisting that all bodies are valid, which they are, but also some bodies are now apparently more valid than others, specifically thinner ones, but we are not saying that; we are just saying we are making healthy choices. I think. It is genuinely a lot to keep up with.

And then, right on cue, the celebrities got thin again. Not just thin. Thin in a way that is making people frightened. And here is where it gets truly complicated, because we are standing at a crossroads that nobody built a signpost for. If we say something, we are doing the thing we were told never to do again, which is commenting on a woman’s body without her permission. If we say nothing, we may be withholding concern from someone who needs it. The rulebook that body positivity wrote does not have a chapter for this, and Ariana Grande’s current tour is forcing the conversation, whether anyone is ready for it or not.