Imagine that it was the plus-size Lizzo executing the exact same performance in the exact same outfit as Jennifer Lopez at the Super Bowl this year. Would that have been even remotely controversial?
I suspect we wouldn’t be debating whether the body imagery on display was healthy or appropriate.
New York Times columnist Jennifer Weiner wrote Tuesday that she felt “personally judged” as she watched Lopez, at 50 years old, prancing around in a sequined leotard, slithering up and down a dance pole.
“I’m just a few months younger than J. Lo, and, with every birthday, I have asked: Is this the year it ends?” Weiner wrote. “Surely there’s a finish line; a point we’ll reach when the You Must Be This Hot in Order to Participate sign at the amusement park ride disappears, and we all get a seat on the roller coaster (right alongside the lumpy, balding, graying, potbellied men who’ve been riding the entire time).”
She admitted that Lopez looked “amazing,” but that she struggled with feeling self-conscious about her own body, just as many other women did on social media for the same reason.
Weiner concluded that the best thing for women to do would be to view such a performance “like a man.”
Which is to say: “Women watch a 15-minute show featuring elite entertainers and, in some cases, end up feeling bad about ourselves. Men, meanwhile, watch a three-hour game, played by elite athletes with single-digit body fat, and most won’t feel a single twinge of self-doubt, or miss a single chip from the nacho platter.”
Lizzo, who at 31 is much younger than Lopez, wore a fairly similar outfit during her performance at the Grammy Awards. And although I won’t compare the result, I don’t recall anyone declaring to have felt “personally judged” by it or debating whether it was appropriate imagery for children.
The only real difference between the Lizzo and Lopez performances is that, by default, we’re expected to applaud Lizzo’s for its “body positivity” politely. The latter? Well, that’s controversial.
If Lizzo deserves to celebrated by everyone, why doesn’t Lopez?
She’s 50 and looks fantastic. No one need feel affronted by it.
