14 DAY TRIAL // Lady Gaga is not the type of woman to take abuse without fighting back, even when said abuse comes in the form of online bullying. On her most recent dates from the #artRAVE Tour, she revealed some weight gain, made obvious by her miniscule stage outfits, and apparently, many saw in that the end of her career as a pop star.
First of all, an artist’s worth and career do not rely on the number of pounds on the scale, not even in our current image-oriented times. Secondly, to engage in online bullying and leave nasty comments to someone you consider “fat” is a very ugly thing to do.
So no wonder Gaga is fighting back.
After her most recent show, Gaga’s Instagram was flooded with comments saying how much weight she’d gained and how she was “fat” and was basically done as a singer because of it. Instead of addressing each and every one of these commenters directly, Gaga did it in a more general but still as effective form.
She posted a photo of herself on the hood of a car, showing off her legs while looking fabulous in a white fur coat, with the caption “curvy and proud.” Before you tell us that the photo has been retouched and manipulated by using a very soft focus, we’ll just say that it’s the message that counts, not necessarily the way in which she’s conveying it.
Indeed, if Gaga wanted to own her “curviness,” she should have used one of the unflattering photos that got fans saying she was “fat” in the first place and not a glamor shot that uses all the tricks in the book to make her look impeccable.
However, she does have a point. She might be a pop star and image might count for her more than for us regular folks, but she’s still a person, and as such, she is not perfect. She too gains weight, but that doesn’t mean she’s less of the woman she was before that, when she was still skinny.
This isn’t the first time that Gaga speaks on body image and body confidence either. In 2012, she launched the Body Revolution, in which she encouraged her fans (aka the Little Monsters) to share photos of their “imperfect” bodies and list the reasons they were proud of them.
“To Inspire Bravery. And BREED some [expletive]-ing COMPASSION. This profile is an extension of that dream. Be brave and celebrate with us your ‘perceived flaws,’ as society tells us. May we make our flaws famous, and thus redefine the heinous,” she wrote.
On the same occasion, she revealed that her boyfriend Taylor Kinney preferred her “curvier” because she was the happiest when she didn’t stress about dieting and working out. “I am not going to go on a psycho-spree because of scrutiny. This is who I am. And I am proud at any size,” she added.
It seems like this still rings true today.