Plus sized model Ashley Graham received harsh criticism for a photo she posted on Instagram. Not from a bunch of trolls chastising her for being fat — but from her fans who felt betrayed she looked thinner.
“You don’t make plus-size dollars anymore, you make backstabbing dollars,” one “fan” wrote.
“You don’t love the skin you’re in, you want to conform to Hollywood, you believe being skinnier is prettier,” said another.
“You used to be a role model and I looked up to you.”
“I’ll find another plus-size beautiful woman, because you’re full of shit!!! #damnshame #justliketherest”
In a blog post addressing the criticism, Graham wrote she hadn’t lost any weight in the past year, the photo just made her look thinner. She is a promoter of “body positivity” and the idea that women are beautiful at any size.
The idea of body positivity is great so much as it promotes feeling good about yourself and encouraging people to not be jerks about others’ weight. But it also has the unfortunate side effect of causing some to treat the overweight as a marginalized group with its own brand of identity politics.
By seeming to lose weight, Graham betrayed her “class” and became the thin-privileged oppressor. And even if she didn’t in fact get thinner, by taking a photo that appeared thin, she promoted unrealistic standards of beauty.
It seems some of her fans didn’t take her “beauty at every size” message seriously and just wanted her to subscribe to their own warped beauty standards.