Photo courtesy of Big Pictures Blog -- many thanks to joelle for the link!
What do you guys think? Positive portrayal of plus women? or vaguely patronising, fat-fetishising anthem?
I'm a little leery of this, partly because within the first four lines we're talking food, pizza specifically - because hey, only big girls eat, and big girls eat pizza! Plus it sets up that whole plus vs. skinny thing with the 'only big girls are real women', as if there's a checklist somewhere for what makes a real woman. Let's play real woman bingo - do you have all the items on the list?!
(Although I do like the 'big balloon' imagery, but that's just cuz I like balloons. Shiny, colourful pretty balloons.)
One other thing - there are a hundred bajillion songs about girls and women and girlfriends and love etc etc etc. Unless they specify height, weight, race, age, hair and eye colour, and shoe size, I like to think they could all apply to me. Why not, right? Take "You're Beautiful" - dreadful song, but there's nothing in there that says it can't be about a plus-size woman, or a buck-toothed buzz-eyed club-footed lass. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? So maybe there needn't be a special song for pluses, because all the songs are for us, them, you, we - and by separating out songs, Big Girl, Fat Bottomed Girls, Baby Got Back, it suggests I was wrong about all those other songs, and they were actually just about slim women.
Or maybe I read too much into it. At any rate, it's less disgusting than Baby Got Back. Actually, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Cosmo doesn't think I'm fat. And keep your anaconda away from me! (I actually do love that song. But it's gross.)
Here's the Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) lyrics. Tell us what you think. Aside from anything else, the video looks to be cool - the stills I've seen are colourful and fun and filled with gorgeous, beautiful, voluptuous women. Final thought (in a non-creepy Jerry Springer way...): whatever the politics of the song, the positives and the negs, that one idea should always be said, and never be ignored: big girl you are beautiful.
Big girl you are beautiful
Walks in to the room
Feels like a big balloon
I said, 'Hey girls you are beautiful'
Diet coke and a pizza please
Diet coke I'm on my knees
Screaming 'Big girl you are beautiful'
You take your skinny girls
Feel like I'm gonna die
Cos a real woman
Needs a real man is why
You take your girl
And multiply her by four
Now a whole lotta woman
Needs a whole lot more
Get yourself to the Butterfly Lounge
Find yourself a big lady
Big boy come on around
And they'll be calling you baby
No need to fantasise
Since I was in my braces
A watering hole
With the girls around
And curves in all the right places
Big girls you are beautiful (x 4)
16 comments:
Here's a site with some photos.
http://bigcelebblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/no-size-zero.html
While the sound is not something i'd normally listen to, I do like the songs message.
Been waiting for this one to be released since I saw Mika perform it during his fab session for the BBC.
It promises to be the greatest pop vid featuring plus-size models since Lorna Roberts spanked those Busted boys in "What I Go To School For." (Okay, if you're not a Busted fan, how about that U2 one from exactly ten years ago featuring Sophie Dahl & William Burroughs...)
New Mika vid be a welcome relief after the latest by Calvin Harris:
He likes them black girls, he likes them tall girls, he likes them fat girls, he likes them carrying-a-little-biddy weight girls... but in the video they're all short, pale & skinny!
Isn't Mika gay/bi?
I'd be interested to know where the disconnect is between gay/bi songwriters (see also; Freddie Mercury, but Mix-A-Lot I don't know about) writing these songs exalting larger females and gay/bi fashion designers hell-bent on whittling even naturally thin women down to nothing.
I agree. This seems more like a fad or the new "it thing". It appears advertisers have found out that this is the new bandwagon to hop on and make money. It lacks sincerity and seems disingenuous.
"maybe there needn't be a special song for pluses, because all the songs are for us, them, you, we - and by separating out songs, Big Girl, Fat Bottomed Girls, Baby Got Back, it suggests I was wrong about all those other songs, and they were actually just about slim women."
Of course there needs to be a special song for plusses, and of couse those other songs were just about slim women. What were the size of the women in the videos that accompanied "those songs"? Thin, thin, and oh, thin. That makes what size of women they were about all too clear. Thin women.
Only if there is a special song for plusses is there even a remote chance that plusses will ever been seen onscreen (a lone two exceptions out of tens of thousands notwithstanding).
hopefully this comes out positive
I do like mika's music though
it's so 'feel good'!
Mika is brave just for doing it. I LOVE him!
I love love MIKA. and I do like this song. While I do see your point to me this is a fun song and actually I forget it is a skinny guy singing and tend to picture a big girl singing. lol who knows.
This should be interesting...
On the one hand I find Mika to be very campy so I don't quite know how to take this song on the other hand I find Mika to be very campy so I just might really like the video.
Cant wait to see how it all turns out.
I don't mind songs specifically for plus sized women, though I agree that if you ignore music videos, which I do, and song about beauty can apply. However, I love the song "Real Woman" by Vicki Pompea (http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/pompea). It never says "plus size" or anything like that -- it just implies an "imperfection" by societal standards that makes a woman "real" rather than air brushed. I love the song, the message, and the singer. She's a local artist who happens to be a friend of mine. I hope her work catches on outside of Northern Colorado. She's fab!
leigh-
I don't know about Mika, but "Fat Bottomed Girls" was written by Queen guitarist Brian May, not by Freddie Mercury.
I love the song and it gives a voice to the men in the world who actually love and lust after big women and are too shy to say so due to societies expectations on beauty and size. I love his reference to the Butterfly Lounge, a plus-size nigthclub in L.A. I look on their website weekly at the pics of big gorgeous girls out having the time of their lives in an environment where they are totally comfortable...
Overall, Mika is the campest, coolest and cutest guy around and I applaud his song that praises and recognises girls with uber curves like me.... "you take your skinny girl and multiply her by four....." thats me! xxx
I am a fan of almost any media that implies that big women are women and as such can be/are just as beautiful as any small woman, however, I hate that he starts the song talking about food. Not everyone heavy gets that way by sitting on their butt all day popping twinkies and I'm sick of the wide assumption/obsession that that's the case. Suggesting big women are gluttons is not beautiful.
Brooke Burkett
Lots of men are loving the big girl thing and now is the beginning of these men being able to openly admit that they do love these shapely women. Real woman...he just means a real woman. I dont think he meant to say that skinny women arent "real". But some curves, a lil extra cushion, it looks and feels more real. YAY! Big girls are awesome and its about time a hot sexy man sings about it!
I completely agree. We're just women for christ's sake!
Why do I have to be reminded that "big girls are beautiful too"? To me it just further emphasises the differences. I don't want to be celebrated (or hated for that matter) for being fat or curvy, surly it should just be on my own merits?
And I get that some men like big women in the same way that others like a good pair of legs but I would just like to ask these men (and I don't know whether any other big ladies have had this experience too)not to come up to us on the street and launch into a tirade about how much you prefer big girls and hate skinny girls and "are you happy in yourself?" and many other entirely personal questions which for some reason appear to have been deemed acceptable to ask a perfect stranger... or does this only happen to me?
silly Mika, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman beat ya too it...
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