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Ariana Grande is vanishing. Are we allowed to have an opinion? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. Ariana Grande is a thirty three year
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  Speaker 1: old superstar who is vanishing before our eyes. Am I
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  Speaker 1: allowed to say that? Is it okay for the rest
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  Speaker 1: of us to have opinions about the body of one
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  Speaker 1: of the world's most photographed women by expressing concern or
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  Speaker 1: something else about someone who looks so unwell? Are we
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  Speaker 1: making things worse projecting our own problems and hang ups
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  Speaker 1: on the most talented among us. One of the Australian's
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  Speaker 1: own brilliant young women, Bianca far Marcus, has strong feelings
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  Speaker 1: about who should be saying what.
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  Speaker 2: I want to do.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I.
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  Speaker 3: Loved her on Victorious. That's probably my first introduction.
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  Speaker 2: I'm juggling and then I'm going to sing a song from.
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  Speaker 3: Me, and then I kept in the loop with the albums.
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  Speaker 3: The songs are always chart topping, so you can't really
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  Speaker 3: you can't miss her.
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  Speaker 1: She's phenomenally successful. She has everything from fragrance lines to
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  Speaker 1: a beauty company to a healthy business doing sponsored posts
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  Speaker 1: on social media, but her main job at the moment
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  Speaker 1: is kind of in film theater and as a touring
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  Speaker 1: musical artist, where she's absolutely massive. Her fans are young,
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  Speaker 1: and they've kind of stayed young throughout her career, aren't they.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of preteen girls, teenage girls, maybe the women
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  Speaker 1: who are growing up with her. Who do you think
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  Speaker 1: is Ariana Grunde fan.
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  Speaker 3: I would agree with you in the sense that they've
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  Speaker 3: always been in that sort of young teen, late teen bracket.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, obviously I've stayed somewhat loyal, but the Wicked
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  Speaker 3: era kind of bored me to tears just too much.
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  Speaker 3: I had to pivot. It's just so annoying. After a while,
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  Speaker 3: I did, and I like, I love Wicked when I
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  Speaker 3: was twelve, and I was happy to leave it there.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. She plays Glinda, the good Witch from
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  Speaker 1: the Wizard of Oz in this adaptation Wicked, which is
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  Speaker 1: a stage and now screen phenomenon.
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  Speaker 2: Alphaba, They're coming for you.
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  Speaker 3: Just look at me, not with your do you know
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  Speaker 3: what I think? What was so interesting about the Wicked
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  Speaker 3: thing is that it reminded everyone the breadth of talent, Like,
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  Speaker 3: you can't just reduce her to a pop star anymore.
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  Speaker 2: People into your lives for reason, here's a plan for
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  Speaker 2: I have no plan, well.
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  Speaker 1: I do.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, thank god, they brought in this whole kind of
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  Speaker 3: more innocent aur to her, that she was this sweet,
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  Speaker 3: very musical, theater bound kind of geeky person, which is
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  Speaker 3: exciting for fans because you're rediscovering someone who, at a
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  Speaker 3: certain point in her career was very much known for
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  Speaker 3: these like vengeful, like sexy breakup albums, which were all
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  Speaker 3: but then you get this new side to her, and
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  Speaker 3: I think it created this incredible spectacle which has very
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  Speaker 3: notably started to sour.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Wicked movies, there were two of them, and
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  Speaker 1: they were filmed together a few years ago and then
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  Speaker 1: released separately over the past two and a half years.
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  Speaker 1: And it's on the press tool for those two movies,
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  Speaker 1: the press tools that she has appeared in public as
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  Speaker 1: a very thin person, a suddenly very thin person. Someone
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  Speaker 1: who was always kind of slim and gorgeous is now
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  Speaker 1: skaletaly thin, and the world has reacted, has not been
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  Speaker 1: able to cope, No, not at all with this. So
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  Speaker 1: how would you characterize the way the conversation's.
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  Speaker 3: Gone, I would say so, I mean, yes, it's exactly
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  Speaker 3: what you said, right, Like, she was always petite, everyone
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  Speaker 3: knew that and she had this kind of athleticism in
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  Speaker 3: this pocket rocket We love a pocket rocket pop star,
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  Speaker 3: especially in this country with Kylie Hah, perfect example. But
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  Speaker 3: then from there you start seeing this uncomfortable sort of
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  Speaker 3: look at what's coming out that you see someone who
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  Speaker 3: is visibly emaciated. I think it's very fair to say that,
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  Speaker 3: and I know we're currently in this post body positivity
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  Speaker 3: era where you can't really say that about someone because
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  Speaker 3: it's not right to comment on someone's body. But it's
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  Speaker 3: just undeniable, like you can't deny that someone who is
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  Speaker 3: on camera, which famously adds ten pounds, already looks like
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  Speaker 3: a shell of their petite self. So it starts with
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  Speaker 3: you know, I guess I can't even remember when it crystallized.
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  Speaker 3: It really started because they started in Australian twenty twenty three.
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  Speaker 3: Everyone saw it and was like, okay, this is noticeably
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  Speaker 3: different to who we knew. And then there were the
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  Speaker 3: rumors that the cast was sort of engaging in this
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  Speaker 3: competitive under eating because the rest of them started to
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  Speaker 3: look extremely thin. And it was very much this discourse
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  Speaker 3: happening online or in quiet spaces, but not something that
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  Speaker 3: was being so addressed so publicly which makes us to
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  Speaker 3: now because I feel like we've really finally stopped looking
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  Speaker 3: at it like it's something to be speculated on and
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  Speaker 3: seen it visibly without a shadow of a doubt for
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  Speaker 3: what it is. And this is someone who is it emaciated,
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  Speaker 3: is inexcusably shockingly and very complicatedly thin in a public
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  Speaker 3: spotlight that is also on the top of their game.
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  Speaker 3: And it's I think it's very confusing for people to
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  Speaker 3: see that right now.
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  Speaker 1: It's really interesting as a woman and a kind of feminist,
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  Speaker 1: isn't it to talk about these things. I had Niki gammelr,
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  Speaker 1: film critic in here to talk about Wicked, the second
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  Speaker 1: film in the Wicked series, and I said to her
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  Speaker 1: in the interview that we did. Ariana Grande and Cynthia
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  Speaker 1: Erevo have transformed since the movie was short to now
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  Speaker 1: on the priest tool they're both very thin. And Nikki said, oh, yes,
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  Speaker 1: but we don't about women's bodies. And Nikki is, like me,
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  Speaker 1: a feminist of a certain age, and I totally respect
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  Speaker 1: her view. And that's one view of feminism that it's
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  Speaker 1: not right to talk about what women look like at all,
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  Speaker 1: so just leave it. But as the mother of a
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  Speaker 1: daughter and someone who has lots of younger women around
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  Speaker 1: me who I care deeply about, and I was once
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  Speaker 1: a young woman. I wonder do we have as women
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  Speaker 1: an obligation or a rite or a duty to speak
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  Speaker 1: about what you say a visibly starving person.
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  Speaker 3: I find it a very interesting conversation that it's kind
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  Speaker 3: of like this, Oh, you can't say that. That's like,
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  Speaker 3: that's mean or it's disparaging. This is not mean or disparaging.
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  Speaker 3: I think you can equate it to numerous other things
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  Speaker 3: that people have suffered from in the public eye, and
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  Speaker 3: that conversation is very warranted because it's seen as a
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  Speaker 3: vice or it's something that you're doing. This is a
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  Speaker 3: health concern, And I mean, I don't really like pinning
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  Speaker 3: it all on Ariana Grande, you know. I think she's
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  Speaker 3: become very much the unfortunate face of what is like
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  Speaker 3: a completely wider and a very systemic issue happening right now.
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  Speaker 3: Of we're just seeing body shit completely again, and the
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  Speaker 3: main change is how rapid it's happened. That's what bothers me.
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  Speaker 3: I don't really care about what people look like. I
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  Speaker 3: don't normally comment on what people look like. What I
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  Speaker 3: do comment on is when it is absolutely everywhere. It
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  Speaker 3: is so visible and it's so visceral that to me
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  Speaker 3: screams at a wider issue and a reminder that no
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  Speaker 3: matter what we'd like to think, no matter how far
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  Speaker 3: we'd like to think we've come, we will continue to
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  Speaker 3: think that starving yourselves for a public image is more
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  Speaker 3: important than cultivating just a reasonable sense of self and
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  Speaker 3: a healthy sense of self around it. I think with
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  Speaker 3: every generation there are waves of when we know that
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  Speaker 3: we're taking things too far in terms of body image,
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  Speaker 3: and there is kind of that rebuttal to what should
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  Speaker 3: be deemed healthy or what should be deemed appropriate within
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  Speaker 3: the realm of body and beauty. And then there's the antithesis,
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  Speaker 3: which is thin is back in, and it comes by
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  Speaker 3: every single generation. Then we find the new thing to
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  Speaker 3: blame for that, and it's never just this kind of
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  Speaker 3: conversation of like, okay, well, like we can acknowledge that
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  Speaker 3: there is a certain beauty standard that will always exist
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  Speaker 3: and or continue to perpetuate, but how are we actually
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  Speaker 3: speaking to people about what is reasonable for who you are.
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  Speaker 3: We're not people in the public spotlight, we're not celebrities.
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  Speaker 3: How do you divorce the fact that every single one
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  Speaker 3: of them are now currently in this shrinking cycle and
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  Speaker 3: not have that effect young people that are observing that
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  Speaker 3: and may think that's normal.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it. How even in the past,
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  Speaker 1: let's take my adulthood, from the nineties through to now,
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  Speaker 1: there's been heroin chic, which everyone kind of blamed on magazines.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it was like, well, this wouldn't be happening.
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  Speaker 1: Kate Moss wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't the
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  Speaker 1: edit for the editors of the magazines who were putting
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  Speaker 1: on the front. Then it was it was the global
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  Speaker 1: runways that showed women and men looking extremely thin. And
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  Speaker 1: then there was kind of a few revolutions that the
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  Speaker 1: victorious secret kind of angel body came along and it's like,
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  Speaker 1: suddenly it's great to be very slim but also kind
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  Speaker 1: of voluptuous. And then the advent of women in hip
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  Speaker 1: hop kind of led these kind of junk in the trunk,
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  Speaker 1: gorgeous natural woman's body, womanly bodies are great again. And
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  Speaker 1: then it was body positivity, so it was like people
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  Speaker 1: actually called themselves fat activists and were very vocal about
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  Speaker 1: how it was important, and you could be fat and
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  Speaker 1: fit and fat and healthy, and then Ozempi came along.
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  Speaker 3: Straight out the window. So I came of age in
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  Speaker 3: the tumbler era and the body positivity eras two very
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  Speaker 3: divergent things where it was very cool privately to post
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  Speaker 3: pro anorexia content on your blog, and it was images
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  Speaker 3: now that I think were unforgivably shocking, though we're proliferating
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  Speaker 3: that space, and in the same length mid twenty tens,
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  Speaker 3: everyone was very happy to celebrate their bodies. I think,
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  Speaker 3: and I don't say this with any sense of glee
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  Speaker 3: or joy, but I think the body positivity movement has
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  Speaker 3: completely failed, mainly because it was a political movement with
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  Speaker 3: no teeth that everyone jumped the bandwagon because it was
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  Speaker 3: suddenly chic to embrace your natural self. There was no
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  Speaker 3: real kind of thought to it, and there was no
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  Speaker 3: real galvanization for that to be a sustaining force because
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  Speaker 3: we accepted the fact that there was maybe one fat
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  Speaker 3: model in every campaign, there was occasionally an overweight person
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  Speaker 3: on the cover of a magazine, and then the second
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  Speaker 3: that anything else could take you back to the standard
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  Speaker 3: of beauty that has been reinforced for generations. It was
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  Speaker 3: like it never happened, genuinely. I think it was such
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: a toothless movement in actuality and very much a kind
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  Speaker 3: of virtue signal for five years.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe if that.
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  Speaker 3: I think we're in an era of excess, and the
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  Speaker 3: relationship I've seen that have with various generations with physicality
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  Speaker 3: has always sort of been like this push and pull.
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  Speaker 3: So the eighties it was the commercialized as everything was
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: in the eighties, but it was a commercialization of the body,
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  Speaker 3: like okay, we've got an ideal. Now. Everyone aspired to this,
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  Speaker 3: like you can do it too, and it was energetic
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  Speaker 3: and fun. You had like aerobics and you had anorexia,
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  Speaker 3: and you could do one publicly and one privately. Then
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  Speaker 3: the nineties was you know, the ideal is still extremely thin,
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  Speaker 3: and it is still extremely stuck in this small physicality.
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  Speaker 3: But your low waisted Jens will look amazing and the
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  Speaker 3: world might end with Y two K, but will look
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  Speaker 3: hot doing it.
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  Speaker 1: I think about that time Who Weekly magazine had an
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  Speaker 1: annual half their size edition. God do you remember that. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: it was like, I mean, let's be honest, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I'm so conditioned that I believe it when people do
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  Speaker 1: look amazing when they shed you know, yeah ten kilos. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's like getting a ten I still think you look better,
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  Speaker 1: you look better with it.
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  Speaker 3: And I know I said that ghostly pale right now,
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  Speaker 3: I can't wait, But now I think what we're looking
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: at now in post COVID, there was an insane loneliness
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: that fell upon the world, which is an enormous trigger
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: to the way people perceive their b and there's been
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: so many studies regarding that that it can trigger something
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  Speaker 3: as extreme as an eating disorder, but also something as
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  Speaker 3: subtle as like reimagining the way you look at I
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  Speaker 3: think where we've had eras of physicality that's rooted in glamorization, aspiration,
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  Speaker 3: you know, commoditization. Now it is ritualization because it is
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  Speaker 3: so much easier quote unquote to be thinner, and it
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: is it is omnipresent the way to lose weight now,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: like there are so many options. I've heard more about
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: golp ones in the past week than I think I've
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: heard about any sort of conversation about mental health, any
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: sort of conversation about things that actually are important. Like
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  Speaker 3: it is just rooted in weight loss, and you're even
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: seeing people who were absolute icons and absolutely celebrated for
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  Speaker 3: showing physicalities that were different to the norm. Be the
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: faces of these drugs, like they like Oprah, like Serena Williams,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: who I absolutely idolized. That was like a leading figure,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: top of her game, and now she's the face of
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: an OZM pig variety.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, I'm on row, they say, golt ones. Her weight
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  Speaker 1: loss is a shortcut. It's not it's science.
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  Speaker 3: Like what does that say to you? What does that
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  Speaker 3: say to anyone? So I look at now, at the
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  Speaker 3: wicked girls, I can't blame them, Like it just makes
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: me so upset. Why wouldn't you fall into that?
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  Speaker 1: Coming up? So where does this conversation go from here?
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  Speaker 1: So back to Arianna Grande. You're wrote in your piece
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  Speaker 1: about what a remarkable kind of person she has been
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: throughout her career. Famously, the Manchester Arena bombing, where many
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: young fans died, was one of her cons Police later
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: confirmed a suicide bomber had killed twenty two in injured hundreds.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: So how did you overcome all of that and get
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: back on stage?
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  Speaker 3: Well?
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  Speaker 2: I think just looking at my fans and the way
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: that they responded to it, and like of course the
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: city of Manchester and how they responded to it with
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: so much like unity and strength and love and fearlessness.
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  Speaker 2: And I just never really seen anything like it.
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  Speaker 1: And she's such an interesting woman. She's clearly so talented.
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  Speaker 1: She's obviously suffering. She's withdrawn from the stage production that
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: she was going to be in because of this discourse
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  Speaker 1: about her body. What do we owe Ariana Grande? What
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: should we be doing? Should we be expressing these opinions?
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Should we be staying quiet?
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  Speaker 3: It's interesting because I mean, she's not a normal person,
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: that's the thing. And I did make it very clear
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: she is the face of this issue. I think when
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: it comes to talking about this on a personal scale,
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: you know, it's very hard to have this conversation with
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: someone because they probably don't realize or they're probably very defensive.
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  Speaker 3: But she is, unfortunately a face with three hundred and
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: sixty million fans worldwide watching her. Everyone's observing it, whether
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: you like to accept it or not. When you're a
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: public figure, you do have a bit of this unfortunate
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: reality that people will comment on things. I think the
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: cruelty people have shown to her is just god, it's appooling.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: But oh, we ever surprise. I think when we talk
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: about these things, we do need to look at it
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  Speaker 3: from a broader cultural lens, which is she is probably
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: the most famous face of it at the moment, but
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: she's not the only one, and she's not the only
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: thing that's driving it. I think the main thing actually
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: when we talk to her about her in particular, is
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: the absolute shamefulness of the people around her, that you
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: will ring this person out who is unbelievably talented to
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: their last bone to make money. Whoever decided that music
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: video that came out with her looking like a walking
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: skeleton was appropriate should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. And
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: it would have taken dozens, if not hundreds of people
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: to have looked at that and thought that was okay.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: But I don need someone to save.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Music.
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  Speaker 1: Well, it's such a great conversation. I think we'll keep
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: talking about it. Thanks Viianka, Thank you. Bianca far Marcus
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: is The Australian's Content Director of Culture. This episode of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the Front was hosted by me Claire Harvey, produced by
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Kristin Amiott and edited by Lead Sammagloo. Thanks for joining
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: us on the Front this week. Our team also includes
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Tiffany Dimac, Joshua Burton and Jasper League, who also wrote
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: our theme