News and Commentary

Lizzo Laments ‘Commercialized’ Body-Positivity Movement: ‘We Have To Make People Uncomfortable Again’

"It’s commercialized"

   DailyWire.com
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 22: Lizzo attends the 51st NAACP Image Awards at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on February 22, 2020 in Pasadena, California.
Aaron J. Thornton/FilmMagic

Pop singer Lizzo may be one of the body positivity movement’s biggest adherents, but she feels that it has become too “commercialized.”

Speaking with Vogue, Lizzo said that while she appreciates the inclusiveness of the body positivity movement, she felt that the commercialization of it creates a whole new set of problems that fail to help the people most in need.

“It’s commercialized,” she said in the October 2020 issue of Vogue.

“Now, you look at the hashtag ‘body positive,’ and you see smaller-framed girls, curvier girls. Lotta white girls,” she continued. “And I feel no ways about that, because inclusivity is what my message is always about. I’m glad that this conversation is being included in the mainstream narrative. What I don’t like is how the people that this term was created for are not benefiting from it.”

According to Lizzo, the moment that something goes mainstream, it changes into something that’s more acceptable.

“Girls with back fat, girls with bellies that hang, girls with thighs that aren’t separated, that overlap. Girls with stretch marks. You know, girls who are in the 18-plus club. They need to be benefiting from … the mainstream effect of body positivity now. But with everything that goes mainstream, it gets changed. It gets—you know, it gets made acceptable,” she said.

“I think it’s lazy for me to just say I’m body positive at this point,” Lizzo continued. “It’s easy. I would like to be body-normative. I want to normalize my body. And not just be like, ‘Ooh, look at this cool movement. Being fat is body positive.’ No, being fat is normal. I think now, I owe it to the people who started this to not just stop here. We have to make people uncomfortable again, so that we can continue to change. Change is always uncomfortable, right?”

As reported by Fox News, Lizzo then spoke about the 2020 election and encouraged people to get out and vote.

“I just want to encourage people to register to vote. That is the most important thing to me,” she said. “Because there’s a lot of upset people, and there’s a lot of people who have power. There’s a lot of voter suppression in Black communities. But there’s a lot of angry white kids now. And I’m, like, ‘Yo, register to vote. Go out. You won’t get suppressed if you try to go to your ballot box.’ You know? I think it’s important to remind people of what they can do. My job isn’t to tell you how to vote. But my job is hopefully to inspire you to vote, to activate you, so that you can take your protest to the ballot box.”

Lizzo did not endorse a candidate, but she did speak kindly of Biden running-mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) while emphasizing that real change is more important.

“Having a Black woman as vice president would be great,” she said. “But I want actual change to happen…in the laws. And not just on the outside, you know? Not a temporary fix to a deep-rooted, systemic issue.”

“A lot of times I feel like we get distracted by the veneer of things. If things appear to be better, but they’re not actually better, we lose our sense of protest,” she concluded.

Got a tip worth investigating?

Your information could be the missing piece to an important story. Submit your tip today and make a difference.

Submit Tip
The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  Lizzo Laments ‘Commercialized’ Body-Positivity Movement: ‘We Have To Make People Uncomfortable Again’