Body shaming; why are Ariana Grande, Britney Spears, and Halle Berry forced to defend their bodies recently?

Users of social media platform TikTok may have woken up this morning to a video posted by singer Ariana Grande, in which the performer, currently in the middle of filming Wicked, gave a bittersweet post regarding body shaming. “I think we could be, I think we should be, gentler and less comfortable commenting on people's bodies, no matter what. If you think you're saying something good or well-intentioned, whatever it is -- healthy, unhealthy, big, small, this, that, sexy, not sexy - we just shouldn't. 

“We should really work towards not doing that as much,” she told her followers, followed by discussing the issues she’s had with people comparing her body now to her body a few years ago. “Personally, for me, the body that you've been comparing my current body to was the unhealthiest version of my body. I was on a lot of antidepressants, and drinking on them, and eating poorly, and at the lowest points of my life when I looked the way you consider 'my healthy,' but that in fact wasn't my healthy."

It’s another response to the growing trend once again of a sect of the internet who for whatever reason feel like they have agency over how a woman should look. For all the talk about body positivity that emerged shortly before the pandemic and lockdowns, we have seemed as a society of netizens to have once again decided to pour scorn on those who feel comfortable about themselves, yet are not subscribing to the modern ideals of what beauty is. Or should that be antiquated ideas of how a woman should look when they reach a certain age. 

PeopleWorld recently covered the story about Halle Berry clapping back at a small yet very vocal number of commenters when she posed naked on a balcony for social media, informing her fans that she’s going to “do what I wanna do,” in response to comments that the 56-year-old should start acting her age, with words such as “menopause” being thrown in for good measure - as if that is an important reason why Berry should remain fully clothed.

We’ve also reported before on how Madonna was subjected to ridicule after her appearance at the Grammy Awards, which in turn has now led to reports that the Queen of Pop is looking to go back to her “natural” features ahead of her tour - despite previously stating she was happy with how she looked and felt. Is perhaps the court of public opinion on this occasion a bit too much for the normally iconoclastic singer?

Even Britney Spears, who has taken more bullets to her confidence throughout her career than anybody should have to endure, recently posted to social media that she was in tears when a male trainer pinched her stomach and legs and told her to get her younger body back, despite the fact that after her conservatorship she was trying to reconcile once again with a life led by her own decisions. Meanwhile Lana Del Rey has also had to contend with online comments that her younger body was much more desirable that how she looks now - an older entity compared to her days as an upstart musician. 

The body shaming that seems to be taking place lately is a little more conniving it would seem compared to the days of baseless name calling; it seems a little bit more cruel in its approach. The examples given seem to be critics (for lack of a better, cleaner word) using a past era of time to suggest that was the “peak” look for a number of celebrities, and as we are aware, time travel doesn’t exist… yet.

Which is all the more crueller when a celebrity is entering their more casual days not ascribing to the old school ideals of what a celebrity should look like. With Ariana Grande for example, her “peak” look was not a healthy time for her and stories have riddled gossip pages and interviews over time how at their “most stunning,” there are a lot of unhealthy aspects that go into it - starvation, overworking and in some extreme cases, eating disorders. 

However, what agency do I have to write about such matters? Speaking as a male, a pudgy one at that, I have had experiences of being publicly body shamed online but not to the extent that a number of females have had to experience. So I asked my fellow co-worker, Natalie Dixon, about her thoughts on the rise of body shaming and, given her background in beauty, fashion and lifestyle pieces, if this is ever going to be a trend that will disappear even though we’ve come so close to total body acceptance.

They say that beauty is ultimately in the eye of the beholder, and that beauty can be abstract in its approach. But it must be getting incredibly harder to turn the other cheek when the focus is what was rather than what is meant to be. Though the celebs seem happier with their bodies as they are, it seems for a loud minority - a very loud one sadly - that there is still the idea that we the public should ultimately get to determine how a celebrity should look. 

Which may hark back to the rise of parasocial relationships that took off during lockdown when we were looking for anyone and anything to stimulate our social behaviour now we couldn’t leave the house.