People Tripping Over Adele’s Weight Loss Proves That We Won’t Let Women Love Their Bodies

Remember when Adele said “I don’t make music for eyes, I make music for ears” and that seemed to be enough for the moment? Well, it doesn’t look like the case anymore. There wouldn’t be any other explanation as to why Adele and her body might suddenly start trending on social media amid a world pandemic and other pressing concerns. 

It all started when the 15-time Grammy winner took to Instagram on her birthday, May 5, to thank people for wishing her and things quickly escalated from there. While Adele did look as amazing and lively in the picture as ever, it was her weight that suddenly had her Insta fam reeling. 

Here’s what she posted:

Notice how her caption is entirely about the COVID-19 heroes and frontline workers. That went nicely unnoticed. Suddenly there was a slew of comments from people telling her how “proud” or “impressed” or “surprised” they were, and immediately tabloids started praising her for the “transformation.” Here are some of the responses:

Instagram

Okay, so let’s gather our thoughts now. Here’s one of the most iconic singers of the decade, posting a picture along with a caption in which she thanks all the “first responders and essential workers who are keeping us safe while risking their lives.” However, the world somehow seems to have missed that point. The essential workers have been conveniently left to careless abandon as Adele’s waist and her “transformation” becomes the biggest concern here. 

So important is Adele’s body and the pressing need to discourse on it that she is trending #1 on Twitter in the UK right now. Here’s some perspective: a country with over 2 lakh COVID-19 cases is discussing Adele more than the pandemic! Now, that has to be something, right? Basically, who cares that Adele decided to thank frontline workers in her Instagram caption so that her fans can also take cognizance of the same? Somehow a body ‘transformation’ requires more discussion than literally the biggest concern in the world right now. 

Not that Adele’s opinions on her body or anything else ever impacted how we like to think about it! Because we are scrutinizing the same woman’s body who has asserted at more than one occasion that there are bigger concerns in the world. “I do have body image problems, for sure, but I don’t let them rule my life, at all. And there’s bigger issues going on in the world than how I might feel about myself and stuff like that,” she once said. 

This is the same person who has always loved the fact that she represents the “majority of women”, who didn’t give two hoots about Karl Lagerfeld calling her “a little too fat” and yet we felt the need to offer our two cents on her body on her birthday. We clearly think too much of ourselves for having that kind of confidence, for giving Adele our validation for her body when she never asked for it. 

 

Instagram

The actual root of the problem can be traced back to 2008 when Adele launched her first album and left the world super confused. She said, “It seemed to astound people that I was plus size and being successful, that was how I felt.”

Perhaps the weight loss has restored some kind of balance in our heads. Adele is a “hot” star now. We don’t have to use euphemisms to describe her anymore. Everything is fine with the world. Let’s write a story on how she decided to mollycoddle our collective egos with a nice “transformation” as if she was trying to say, “Hey world, look at me. I shed those ‘extra pounds.’ I am worthy of your admiration now!”

As much as I’d like to go on and on about it, how about we knock some sense in our heads and understand, for once and for all, that her body and the choices that she makes with it are literally none of our business. “No, never. I’ve never seen magazine covers and seen music videos and been like: ‘I need to look like that if I wanna be a success.’ Never,” she has said. Our congratulatory messages for her weight loss effectively nullify that choice. But more than that it impacts those who have been in a constant love-hate battle with their bodies because society wouldn’t have it otherwise. 

Every time we congratulate Adele or someone else for their weight loss, even when they don’t seek our opinions on the same, we establish that our view of bodies and beauty remain extremely myopic. It establishes that we have failed on an intellectual level for we fail to see and value the true worth of a person. It establishes that we are just conceited, prejudiced beings who cannot see beyond appearances. It establishes that we have an extremely flawed and one-dimensional idea of beauty. As Adele would put it: Can we just calm down and focus on the real problems in life?

Featured Image: Instagram