Artifact 12 - Ariana Grande Interview & Surrounding Online Discussion

With the release of the movie Wicked, Ariana Grande has been in the news and talked about on social media quite a bit. While much of this does pertain to the movie and her role, much of it has nothing to do with that: instead, it focuses on her appearance and speculation around her potentially having an eating disorder. This interview clip was linked under one such discussion about her weight and eating habits online, which, at the time of writing, has over 17 million views. It features Grande speaking on how the pressures of everyone having an opinion about her weight all the time is exhaustingly depressing. Some commenters say that discussion about her weight is important because seeing her so thin sets unrealistic standards for her fans, while others argue that it is cruel to discuss her appearance at all when it clearly makes her quite uncomfortable.

Gendered Lives argues on page 234 that the unrealistic beauty standards set by celebrities effect our societal view of what our own bodies should look like, and that the prevalence of overly-thin actors and actresses in mainstream movies is unrealistic and unhealthy. While this seems to support one side of the commenters, I’m not entirely sure that it does: after all, Grande is a human too, and is one of those people affected by gendered media saying she should be thin. I’ve been diagnosed with an eating disorder, and so I do feel the distinct pain of the pressures at play. It’s a situation where, honestly, I’m not sure where I stand on “should we discuss that this is unhealthy” or “discussing it is cruel” as I see merit in both: but what I do know is that the discussion deserves much more respect and much less judgement for the sake of all parties involved. Untying ourselves from the beauty standards of the modern media empire is no easy feat, and deriding her for being victim to the ever-watching eye of the media is cruel and unjust.