Five days ago, DNCE released the official music video for this awesome fantabulous song. Please click and listen to it!!
The music video features Joe Jonas and Ashley Graham, the star of this media blog. Ashley Graham is a famous "plus-size lingerie model for Lane Bryant". I can honestly say this is one of the few times a "plus-size" model has made it into something as big as the main female character of a music video. To even emphasize this rare occasion, the song is basically about a sexual relationship between Joe and Ashley. I'm not saying "plus-size" people never make it into "big things," because they do. But most of the time it's to contribute to very explicit messages like "love your body" or "you are beautiful." This music video has nothing to do with loving your body, or at least the lyrics don't. But the video has an underlying message that not all people have the perfect body figure like the normal female interests portrayed in media as big as this music video. Most of the time, advertisers/companies may think it is better to put these self-love messages upfront, but in my opinion, the message is more effectively conveyed if it's implicit like in Toothbrush's music video.
Almost never has a "plus-sized" model participated in something, and hasn't been pointed out as being the outlier just because she/he is a little more rotund than the others. Even now, a majority of the YouTube comments are about Ashley and her participation in this project. But at least in the video, she is regarded as a normal being engaged in a relationship with a man. There is nothing sung about her that points out her body. It's the viewers that notice for themselves how Ashley is different from the "perfect" figures of media. This is a bit saddening to me because all the comments on YouTube are about how beautiful Ashley looks. This came off as a great thing to me at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized why there were so many comments. The public is so conditioned to see the ideal slim figures, that any other different body type immediately stands out to them.
This music video provided just that experience for its viewers. It has the underlying message that not only perfect bodies can hold sexual relationships, but all body types can too. This is only just the first step of body-awareness. One day, when a body different from the stereotypical skinny figure is featured in media, the public will no longer comment on her "unique" body, but instead solely focus on her performance.
On a completely separate note, when watching Toothbrush 193479752384 times, I was extremely proud of the video containing no ads. Until 3:09. Up until 3:09, the video just featured Joe and Ashley's relationship. But viewers get to 3:09, and boom. There it is.
Ashley is holding a cup of tea and turning on the speakers. Speakers from Beats by Dr. Dre. Speakers that the camera felt the need to zoom all the way in on the lowercase "b." I was so proud too, but I guess media is media and it's inevitably going to contain some forms of advertisements.
Concluding this post, I am going to insert another picture of the Selena Gomez concert because why not? Plus, I really miss that night!
I actually laughed out loud when I read "plus size people make it into'big things.'" Does that make me a bad person...?
ReplyDeleteLOL no because when reading your comment I laughed too. Totally was not aware I said that in the post...
DeleteI see the same thing throughout social media where people of a "plus size" appearance being prazied for being in movies,adds and other things. To me as you said people should focuse at the task she is doing not the fact that she is going the task. I would be more impresed and give more praiz to social media when it starts featuring people with acne and other imperfections
ReplyDeleteI just want to go on a short rant about why I in general hate when people use the term 'plus size'. I did a little bit of research and ironically Lane Bryant was actually the first to use the term. Originally it was used to describe a clothing size, but now it's more commonly just used to describe the women themselves. Like you said Steffany, "Ashley Graham is a is a famous plus-size lingerie model." But what actually makes her different then the other models?? Why are we labeling her as a "plus size" model, when it's only her UNIQUE body shape that makes her different. I find this extremely degrading. Women SHOULD NOT be segregated based on their bodies. How does this effect the body image in a positive way?? It doesn't!! Not to mention that over Twitter, Ashley Graham claimed that she, herself hates being called a plus-size model!! I feel like it would be pretty hard to "love yourself", if you knew that you were something outside of the normal, which is what is being implied with the word "plus."
ReplyDeleteSorry for offending you soof! It was definitely unintentional of me to label Ashley Graham as "plus-size." I was simply going off of her description on Google when I looked up who this model was. My usage of "plus-size" was only for the purpose of pointing out how this music video is slowly breaking the "perfect" figure stereotype. I was simply too lazy to think of another term to replace Google's definition.
DeleteWhile I agree it's a good thing for artists to diversify the people in their work, this video still reinforces plenty of beauty standards. How often do we see a male singer who diverges from the "Joe Jonas" body type (white, straight, muscular, fair skin, etc.)? Hardly ever. It seems that there's a huge movement to be more inclusive of a variety of women in the media, which is awesome. But the media still seems to be stuck on this single homogeneous way that men are represented. Baby steps, I guess.
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