Why I Love Beth Ditto, Vol. #2
Um, because she’s fab.
Well, besides that, of course.
So here’s reason number two in my ongoing series about Beth Ditto and the reasons why I adore her:
She is this month’s NME Magazine’s cover girl.
So, did I mention she’s naked on this cover?
Beth has got chutzpah!
And she’s smokin’!
(Thanks to my man Perez for the heads up!)
First, can I just say, HOT?
HOT HOT HOT!!!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this body. It’s not offensive, it’s not unattractive, and it’s not disgusting. It’s beautiful.
Beth Ditto is no doubt the Queen of Cool and she totally rocks this cover. Now, just because I’m plus-size doesn’t mean that I always think a plus-size body always looks good. I’m not very much a “You go, girl!” girl. But Beth totally deserves (an unironic) “You go, girl!”
And now, I will leave you with another Gossip music video, “Standing in the Way of Control”.
Calculating the Curvature 
I know I should be leaving a more substantial comment here, but all I can say is….how is her skin so flawless??? HOW???
Airbrushing, honey.
Damn WordPress for deleting my comment by accident. The first thing I thought when I saw this was “Wow – The Airbrushing.” I really don’t understand why this deserves a “You Go Girl” or why you think she is so ballsy. If the photo was not airbrushed and her in her natural state THAT would be daring and worthy, but now personally I think this looks just like the cover of a BBW porno. This is not really because of her weight so much, but rather her pose, the kiss on her ass, and the fact that it simply looks like the cover of what would be “Big Gurlz Cum Back Part III.” When I first saw the image [after I thought of the airbrushing] I really thought this was a porno cover. Now even if it was a “regular sized” or skinny celebrity in the same pose and layout I’d think it was a porno cover. It just looks like it. Personally I think it looks classless, but she doesn’t exactly seem the classiest girl herself, so I guess it’s in character. But I don’t get why it’s such a big deal. I get that she’s bigger and on the cover of a popular magazine naked, but I still don’t really get what the fuss is. It may stem possibly also [aka it stems from] the fact that I simply find her really unattractive – even just her face. This probably makes me sound rather mean, but… whatever.
In its way, even BBW porno would be pretty daring if taken outside of its ghettoized subculture. A fat naked woman directly challenges our cultural directives. Its rebellious. Its easy to forget that sometimes once one discovers the BBW sub-culture, but you need to remember how completely unseen this is for most people. Fat women aren’t simply figuratively invisible in our society. They are literally invisible almost all of the time. So yeah, I think this is a big deal. It makes the fat body a little more real. Maybe that’s not the “proper” thing for a fat woman to do, but I’m glad there are people like Beth Ditto who are eager to be improper.
I, too, love Beth Ditto and shake my ass to The Gossip regularly. Good on you for this series.
[…] Why I love Beth Ditto – The Gossip are an average band at best (review), yet somehow singer Beth Ditto has been adopted as a feminist role model for non-size-zero women everywhere. All she really does though is make herself out to be a freak show. If image really matters so little, why not get on with playing music instead of posing naked on the cover of the NME? […]
Links of the week « Jonathan Deamer said this on June 3, 2007 at 9:54 PM |
I find it ironic that when we see unhealthily skinny models they are often comdemned for promoting a bad body image. Yet Beth is being applauded when she is, in her own way, promoting an opposite, yet equally unhealthy body image.
I fully understand that there is a problem with a stigma surrounding “fat”, and a problem with skinny models providing unattainable goals for young women. But surely the way to combat this is to provide more public exposure for “normal” women. Extremes – at either end of the spectrum – are not helpful.
It’s because people have forgotten what healthy is. Just because the BMI said that now what would’ve been an Anorexic weight 8 years ago, is now healthy, does not make it so.
Beth Ditto is not an extreme, it just seems she is because you’ve had your concept of health so warped by media, and health organizations looking to get more money by selling diet pills. The fact is the majority of women in America look like Beth, that must mean that the majority of women weren’t born to naturally look “healthy” as it’s considered now.
The point I’m making here is you don’t know what “normal” is. There is no normal. What is a normal healthy weight for one person, may not be for another person. Everyone is different. All you are doing is perpetuating the notion that you can cookie-cutter people into being healthy at one standard size. If you are going to that, I highly suggest you do it other than on a anti-sizism board. Unless you enjoy getting your head bit off.
I think this is what is called “concern trolling”. It has the effect of “I completely agree with you except not at all.”
I don’t see any irony here. Fat people aren’t “bad role models” by virtue of being fat. When fat becomes so accepted that there are millions of men and women gorging themselves to gain weight, you can talk to me about promoting unhealthy body image. Your problem is that you accept a fat body as a wrong body. That’s our society’s problem. A fat body is just a fat body. Its not broken or unhealthy or unacceptable. It is not extreme. Its just fat. And with no safe or sustainable way to make a fat body into a not-fat body, its simply punitive and unproductive to continue to make fat bodies stigmatized and invisible in our culture. No natural body is too extreme to be accepted. Whether you’re naturally thin, naturally average, naturally fat, or even naturally very fat. No one should be told that their body has no right to be seen.
If you are large and comfortable with your weight, yes you might be happy, but from a healthy point of view it is important to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
What about that pictures suggests that she doesn’t maintain a healthy lifestyle? A healthy lifestyle hasn’t been shown to turn fat people into not fat people, so how is her being fat proof that she isn’t healthy?
Not trolling, but genuinely interested.
And I never said Ditto “has no right to be seen”. She is perfectly entitled to live a life not being judged about her weight, as is anyone, *unless* she (or anyone else for that matter) goes out of her way to make her weight an issue, as I believe she has done by posing for the NME. If she got on with playing music, and didn’t go on about how empowering it is to pose naked, then her weight wouldn’t be an issue.
This is a big deal because fat women are generally bullied into covering their bodies in huge, unflattering tent-like clothing. Any glimpse of chubby legs or ‘bingo wings’ (plump arms) is seized upon and criticised. And god forbid that, as Beth has done, a large lady should ever reveal her belly! Yes it is a provocative image but it makes a point, and there are many similar images in mens magazines such as Nuts and FHM (i.e. NOT porno ones) which go unremarked because the models are skinny and boyish. I think the NME and Beth are brave for getting this printed
So fat people need to shut up about being oppressed and ridiculed about being fat? We need to be good little fatties and not object to cultural stigmatization of our weight. Why then there would be no problem at all. Its when we open our mouths and have opinions that we have a problem.
I love your blog so you have been tagged
Truly Curvaceous
I want to see her in concert cause she has to be amasing, pure energy on stage…
She looks natural! i personally can’t no matter how little i eat and how much i excerise can’t get any slimmer than a size 14 and i’ve tried but now i’m just happy as i am! well done to Beth!
hi,
can we exchange links?
My blogs address is http://latest-celebritynews.blogspot.com/
If you are interested then pls add my link under “Celebrity News” and post a comment on my blog informing me about that, so that I may reciprocate.
Thanks
SiD
UPDATE GIRL. OR I WILL EAT YOU.
First, can I just say, EWE?
EWE EWE EWE!!!
There is absolutely nothing right with this body. It’s offensive, it’s unnattractive, and it’s disgusting. It’s horrible.
Beth Ditto is no doubt the Queen of Kool-Aid and she totally rocks this cover like a flabtastic earth quake of fat. Now, just because I’m fat as hell doesn’t mean that I always think a ginormous body always looks human. I’m very much a “You eat, girl!” girl. But Beth totally deserves (an ironic) “You’re totally not a fat monster, girl!”
And now, I will leave you with another pro-tip from my cookbook, “Add more Crisco, because too much is never enough”.
DESU DESU DESU!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Love, from /b/
Funny. I don’t find thin women attractive, and yet it never occurs to me to seek out site discussing thin women to make a huge deal about how disgusting and inhuman they look. Probably because I don’t think they look disgusting or inhuman. They just don’t look attractive to me.
Bug I guess that’s probably because I’m not a self-important ass. That probably helps.
Hi I just want to say this is probably cliche but when I first saw Lilly Allen I didn’t even notice if she was stick skinny or not, she has a pretty face. That’s all I noticed. I think LIlly and people like her are c out of their mind to think they are fat. I think it is the confindnece that matters, I think they should consider that. Just be happy with who you are, being really thin will not change that. Thank you.
Wendy
I think Beth Ditto is GORGEOUS. I respect her.
Beth Ditto is lovely
I just tried watching Ugly Betty just a few minutes ago a
nd not only was one of the lead actresses in a fat suit
but she was binging and everyone was making jokes about
how fat she was. Do I smell a boycott? Maybe Madonna
is right–Television is trash! My thinner mother (whose
still a size 18 and still longs to be thin) and my
thin brother didn’t have a problem with it but I found
it disturbing on some many levels!
I agree with BSTU. I CERTAINLY DON’T SEEK OUT PRO-ANOXERIC
SITES TO BASH THIN WOMEN FOR BEING TOO SKINNY. EITHER
AMERICANS NEED TO GET A CLUE OR GET A LIFE! Fat women
are here to stay and if you don’t like it, go someplace else!
sheesh . . .
Does anyone know how to contact the moderator of this sits?
Hmm…I actually find her quite sexy and fappable (Even though she’s a lesbian, I would still jump her bones!!!), HOWEVER, at the same time, promoting being fat is not good, either.
Someone said earlier that most women in America look like Beth, which means that not all women are born to look a certain way. Wrong, deary. Here is the truth, without sounding too dick-headish; people who are lazy and feed their face constantly are now being encouraged to not care about it, and keep sitting on their asses and eating. This is not good, it’s simply irresponsible.
Yeah, I find some fat women attractive, even sexy, but I still don;t think being overweight is healthy, and if you ask me, anyone who really thinks being fat is acceotible are people who are fat themselves . . . everyone else knows how unhealthy it is.
No why most women in America look like her? Because most people in America can’t stop eating! It has nothing to do with how you were born to look, as someone suggested earlier! Don’t see women anywhere else in the world as fat as that. America isn’t the only well-fed country in the world, either, so that isn’t the reason. When I was in Japan last summer, I saw not one overweight person the entire time I was there. Just face it, people over here are lazy, and now want to make excuses for their own lack of respect for their own body. Shamefull.
P.S. I understand that some people can’t help their weight due to health and medical reasons, in which case I don’t hold them personally at fault (it is in this case most of the time that I can usually feel comfortable dating a girl who is overweight, since she herself is not to blame for her health), so to those people, I am not speaking of you, I am only refering to those otherwise healthy individuals who simply won’t admit that they have an eating disorder.
Interesting comment p0mt3 — I hear that a lot about “don’t see women anywhere else in the world as fat as that”…. — how many people are aware that the American FOOD INDUSTRY has habits that are sabotaging even a
“non-lazy” – “non-overeating” fat population – LIKE: 1)hydrogenated oils in most products that have a shelf life.
2. Substituting Margerine for real butter.
3. CORN SYRUP as a sweetener (proven to metabolize VERY different from real unrefined sugar — and guaranteed to PACK on the pounds — that’s why they feed pigs, cattle and chicken in the USA CORN.
4. A plethora of other artificial sweetners that confuse the body and make it impossible to use those sugars for energy — so people naturally become insulin resistant and UNABLE to LOSE WEIGHT or even STAY THE SAME WEIGHT after years of consuming so-called “safe” and even “healthy” foods.
Before you accuse American FATTIES of it being due to laziness or over eating — you must realize that JAPAN, India, China, the Middle East, and SOME european countries (apparently not England) DO NOT ALLOW THIS CRAP TO ENTER THEIR FOOD SUPPLY — that is more a valid reason why they are skinnier — not by virtue or effort or discipline — moreso because their food supply is not tainted. look at a carton of DANNON LIGHT YOGURT OR YOPLAIT — YOU WILL FIND CORN SYRUP — the byproduct of what they use in America TO FATTEN livestock OK???? These are facts — and there are TONS MORE. and Third world countries have natural food (if they eat at all).
Some people do overeat — but with these substances in our diet — believe me, it doesn’t take long to get HUGE in America or anywhere this crap is added to food to mess up our systems.
this is an issue the American People never think about when electing a government official (congressman, president etc.) — yet these foreign things in our food are killing us in more than one way — not only are these things making us FATTER — they are making us SICKER.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT — CIAO.
I read labels and if it has any man made sweeteners, I don’t buy it. I spend most of my food dollar in the produce section. I accidentally bought cereal with HFCS and found that I couldn’t stop eating it. It’s better not to have it in the house. However, not eating artificial food isn’t going to make someone thin. However, I think it’s a step toward living a healthier lifestyle. If we stop buying food with HFCS, the food industry will stop adding it. We have to vote with our dollars.
hi im a second year fashion degree student at colchester uni and am currently taking part in alternative fashion week – a well publisied and prestigious fashion event.
this year we are challenging the size 0 debate about how a model should look etc, using beth ditto and elizabethian costume inspiration i have designed and will create an dramatic outfit.
i am looking for a plus size model sized 18+ who is fun and confident to model my design on the catwalk during alternative fashion week in spittlefields london on the 23rd april. you must also be available for a dress fitting and rehersal on the 15th and 22nd of april at colchester.
it will be a fun day out, coach fare to london will be paid for, and is a great event to take part in, lots of press are covering the event so you could be in the papers, this would be great work for an aspiring plus size model but no experience is needed anyone is free to contact me.
Also Beth Ditto is a close friend of our tutor Giles Pearson who you may hav seen on the last series of project catwalk, so she may be coming to the event!
would love to hear from you,
stephanie
stephanie_lismore@hotmail.co.uk
First, can I just say, EWE?
EWE EWE EWE!!!
There is absolutely nothing right with this body. It’s offensive, it’s unnattractive, and it’s disgusting. It’s horrible.
Beth Ditto is no doubt the Queen of Kool-Aid and she totally rocks this cover like a flabtastic earth quake of fat. Now, just because I’m fat as hell doesn’t mean that I always think a ginormous body always looks human. I’m very much a “You eat, girl!” girl. But Beth totally deserves (an ironic) “You’re totally not a fat monster, girl!”
And now, I will leave you with another pro-tip from my cookbook, “Add more Crisco, because too much is never enough”.
DESU DESU DESU!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Love, from /b
iiiiiiiiiu787kiuo
No, you’re wrong. She doesn’t look good, she’s not cool, she is not an icon.
She is a morbidly obese idiot, too lazy to exercise self-control. As a result her body is deeply, offensively, ugly. There is nothing to respect about her. She is a bum.
Time to stop making excuses girls, and get your lardy faces out of the pie dish.
To be plus size doesn’t impace the health of our body. And it is more sexy to have a big body. More and more men like big women nowadays. It’s the trueth. A lot of big men come to largeplace.com to find the big women they want to live with lifetime.
Does anyone have any idea why that person keeps saying “EWE EWE EWE”? What does the repetition of the word for a female sheep have to do with anything?
The word you mean is “EW.” Or possibly “UGH.” It’s kind of hard to tell what the person means.
Actually what I noticed more was that her pits are unshaven. It would be a lot braver of me to show my unshaven pits than my nekkid body.
Here’s a question for you folks. I’m sure you know thin people who eat enormous amounts and sit on their butts all day, yet stay thin. Why is it so hard to accept that at least some fat people DON’T do that, but are fat anyway?
You say she is lazy and that is why she is fat? I know TONS of skinny people who NEVER exercise and eat fried foods all day long. How are they so much healthier than a plus sized person who moderately exercises and doesn’t fried food for every meal? Skinny does not equal healthy. You are ridiculous if you think that is true!
Check out this article:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2006/11/obesity-paradox-1.html
[…] equally marginalized. Perhaps they are not drawn to just any fat girls but the fat girls who are fabulous in the face of society telling them that they are not worthy. Perhaps this is why when I went […]
the flaming blame game : Thats My Bix said this on January 14, 2009 at 2:50 PM |
hey brian, you realize, even kate moss is airbrushed, so we don’t exactly take her for what she is, either
Americans are so lame. sex appeal- 50% what you have and 50% of what you think you have. She has a lot of sex appeal and that should be alright with you. Her body, her business. If she wants to show her body and confidents, so be it. Super skinny skeleton girls do it. Big girls can work it too.
i don’t quite know how to start… first of all i have to say i’m a size 14 girl myself, so i know what i’m talking about.
your weight doesn’t make you attractive or unattractive, because beauty is still in the eye of the beholder. nowadays the fashion industry and media tell us fat girls are ugly and skinny girls are pretty, but that of course is not true (like it or not).
i have to say that i don’t like any of the 2 extremes: skinny and fat. both are really unhealthy. yes, being overweight is unhealthy guys and gals. what most americans don’t get is that you can be big but at some point it’s really unhealthy and it gives you a lot of restrictions. you can’t do sports that good, your bones don’t take the weight really well (ankles, back etc.), your risk of heart attack and diabetes is higher and so on. i’m not trying to bring you down guys, but celebrating overweight is sick! celebrating underweight is just as sick! celebrating curves is good, because curves are sexy, but calling beth hot seems so unbelievably wrong to me.
i’ve been struggling all my life to be HEALTHY, not skinny, but healthy. i’m from europe, where we get a lot more food education than you do here. we also use fresher vegetables for meals, drink less pops, don’t eat so much junkfood like pizza (and when we do, it’s real italian pizza and not the americanized kind with tons of cheese). i for myself love healthy food, i love fruits so much, but like i said i’m still size 14. so seeing you guys celebrating obesity, saying that beth ditto is perfect and whatever makes me throw up, and i’m not talking about binging…
I’ve got to say this: STOP BEING STUPID! SHE’S A MUSICIAN NOT A MODEL. AND SHE HAS A GREAT, AMAZING VOICE. HER MUSIC IS GREAT. I LOVE THE GOSSIP. SO STOP BITCHING ABOUT HER WEIGHT!