Could Vogue make their hatred of fat people any clearer?
Why Gigi Hadid's "Can't Stop the Beat" Campaign Is a Step Back for Inclusivity
I don’t know if I can truly capture the anger I felt when I opened my Instagram last Tuesday, March 11th…
Let me give you some background about me. I’m a theatre kid at heart. I grew up watching Annie, Mamma Mia!, and, of course… Hairspray. Hairspray is my all-time favorite movie. It’s pure magic. As a fat person in the arts, there’s no character I relate to more than Tracy Turnblad—a spitfire, a freedom fighter, and a confident fat person. Someone with the kind of energy I try to channel in myself every day.
So, you can imagine the intensity of my reaction when I saw Vogue’s latest campaign, Can’t Stop the Beat, starring… Gigi Hadid? The wildest part? There wasn’t a single fat person on screen during the 3-minute 17-second video titled Gigi Can’t Stop the Beat, and maybe two plus-sized models if you stretch the definition. And let's be real, the industry's version of a plus-sized model is NOT fat.
The video opens with Gigi Hadid lip-syncing Tracy’s lines: "You can’t stop an avalanche as it races down the hill." Gigi’s shown in a bra, her skinny body on full display. I am nowhere near hating on Gigi’s body type–she’s a gorgeous girl. But her thought that this was okay? Pure hate coming from me.
Though they didn’t outright say Gigi was playing Tracy Turnblad, she wore the iconic high hairdo and was posed in the same positions as Tracy in the movie. And Motormouth Mabel, whose signature song is “Big, Blonde, and Beautiful,” was played by Laverne Cox…who is not big.
Then there’s Cole Escola playing Edna Turnblad, Tracy’s fat mother. Cole Escola? Not fat. They even removed Edna’s line, “You can’t stop my knife and fork when I see a Christmas ham,” from You Can’t Stop the Beat. Could they have made their message any clearer? They hate fat people. How do they even justify this atrocity by cutting that line?
I’m also disappointed in Marc Jacobs. His guest-edited issue of Vogue December ‘24 was the best thing the company had put out in a long time. I thought, with his help, Vogue was headed in the right direction. But here we are… with his involvement, they’ve created one of the most tone-deaf campaigns I’ve seen in ages. I expected better, and now, all hope for Vogue is lost.
They could’ve done Legally Blonde. They could’ve done Mamma Mia! They could’ve done Mary Poppins. But instead, they chose to touch on something with real meaning for fat people—a story that has allowed us to feel confident and beautiful in an industry that does the opposite.
Shame on you, Vogue. Shame on you.