“All About That Bass” is sending some treblesome messages

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photo courtesy of www.meghan-trainor.com

Meghan Trainor’s newest song “All About That Bass” sits at number 15 in pop music.

Anjali Khanna, Features Editor

Having rocked the nation with its catchy rhythms and powerful message to young women and with status as number 15 overall in pop music, its hard not to have Meghan Trainor’s hit new song “All About That Bass” on repeat this August. I certainly did.

Until I actually listened to the lyrics, that is.

All involuntary foot-tapping aside, the seemingly-empowering message that Trainor is sending out to the world about loving your curves is actually speckled with undertones of body shaming in the reverse direction. In several parts during the song, Trainor mocks the stereotypically “skinny girl,” claiming that girls with a size-two body type are fake and unattractive.

In her music video, Trainor says, “I’m bringing booty back, so go ahead and tell them skinny b**ches that,” as her backup dancers push another, skinnier girl out of the frame. What she has failed to understand, however, is that by putting curvier girls on a pedestal, she has put down an entire other group of young women who also cannot change their body shape or size.

The entire purpose of the song, as well as many other songs like “All About That Bass,” is to end a societal norm known as “fat shaming.” As a whole, we are pretty aware that fat-shaming, or putting someone down because their clothing size is larger than yours, is wrong, but does that mean skinny shaming is OK? Is it acceptable to tell society that “real women have curves,” while there are still some girls out there who will never have them?

While getting caught up in our so-called “fat-anthems”, its pretty easy to forget that the true meaning of songs like these is to call all bodies beautiful, whether they resemble that of Trainor and her backup dancers or a silicone Barbie doll.

However, in her song, Meghan Trainor also is sending another message which to me is undeniably infuriating. She is placing the idea in young girls’ heads that they need to change their bodies in order to please men. In the first verse of the song, she says “yeah my momma told me don’t worry about your size, she says boys like a little more booty to hold at night.”

Trainor acts as if this is the only reason being bigger-sized is OK, because the boys like it better. She is forgetting that women everywhere have a choice not to listen to misogynistic body policing and accept themselves for who they are, fat or skinny. Trainor is forgetting that women should want to change their size or weight for their own self-confidence and self-love, not to please anyone else.

Meghan Trainor, like many other artists in the media, may have thought it acceptable at the time to single out a certain body type as inferior or less attractive than the others. In fact, she may not have even realized what she was doing. While listening to the song, just remember the one good message sent to you by Trainor. “Every inch of you is perfect, from the bottom to the top.”