Fat Girl Approved

I’ve been sitting on this post for a couple of a days for a couple of reasons.  Because of that, it will probably be a bit long-winded, random, and a bit ranty towards the end with plenty of cussing.  You have been warned.

The Grammy’s

I love music.  I firmly believe that every person has a soundtrack of their life based on the music that can be tied to any moment of their lives.  I can hear a song now that will bring back the memory of a certain book read during a certain summer of my childhood.  I have particular songs that take me back to the black times of my teens, the happiness of meeting my husband, singing along to the radio with my oldest, and acting like goofballs with best friends.

Because of that the Grammy’s have always been pretty important because it sums up the previous year of music for me.  I like to see the artists I like rewarded for putting out a great song.  I love seeing the performances of those same songs.

It used to be there were more awards given than performances aired.  The other night I saw only a handful, maybe 1/2 a dozen, of awards actually given on air.  The rest was performances, many that just plain ‘ol sucked.  I think there needs to be a better balance between seeing our favorite artists receive their awards and performing their songs.

Adele

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I have a serious girl crush on Adele.  I think she is beautiful and her songs make me cry because of the feeling and emotion behind them.  Her music and voice is so great you almost don’t want to sing along to it in the car because you could never be as good.  When I hear Rolling In The Deep I think of every creep who screwed me over and when I hear Someone Like You I think of how lucky I am to have met my husband when I did and how I did.

And the fact that she mentioned the snot running out of her nose during her final speech?!  Amazing!

Whitney Houston

This past year has been a hard one for celebrities and musicians.  So many have died from health problems, drug problems, and even just old age.  It is sad though many times I just kind of skip over it because it’s not someone I know.  But when musicians die from my childhood, it hits a bit closer to home.  Maybe it makes me feel older or it makes me remember when I would play I’ll Always Love You over and over again or how we’d dance along to Now That We Found Love by Heavy D.

It is sad Whitney Houston died.  I don’t doubt that her actions and choices from the past few years played a factor into her death, even indirectly from abuse to her body.  But I am glad that as people memorialize her, they take care to mention those extreme lows she hit. When Michael Jackson died, all of a sudden everyone loved him and chose to ignore the craziness that was his life.  He could have been a saint.  But not Whitney.  She had her faults, her drug use, her drama, but I think people use those stories to really show that despite all of that, people still loved her, idolized her, and it made her human.

Chris Brown

Pardon my redneck french, but why the fuck is Chris Brown able to make millions, win awards, and be accepted by his peers after his beat down of Rihanna and his other various violent outbursts?  Why the fuck is this jackass performing, I use that term lightly, on the awards shows twice in one night, winning awards, and being idolized by women as someone who can ‘beat them down’?

This douche bag beat Rihanna severely a couple of years back, has a restraining order against him, had to serve community service, and yet still has the support of his peers.  Now, I have issues with Rihanna’s handling of it as well though I do not pretend to have the psychology background to understand the pathology of her as a victim so I won’t go there today.  But Douchebag Brown only lost one endorsement deal with Double Mint and didn’t serve any jail time.

His rap buddies banded behind and he continues to be touted as some god in the hip hop game.  Give me a fucking break!  These ‘artists’ are supposed to present some sort of better example for their audience.  They should have stepped back, let him hang, and not support him in a way that trivialize what happened that night.

I understand that people deserve a second chance.  Yet Chris Brown had little consequences for his actions, he still makes me millions, and wins awards.  Stupid girls post on Twitter that he can ‘beat them anytime’.  Thankfully I have never been a victim of domestic violence.  But this type of situation makes it okay for men to beat down their significant others as if it’s cool.  Ooooh Chris Brown assaults another musician and he makes millions.

I refuse to listen to any song he has a part of.  This has meant a few times that I’ve had to stop listening to songs that I previously liked but didn’t know he had a part of.  I did not watch his performances the other night. And I almost puked when he won a Grammy and everyone cheered.  I realize I am but one person and he’ll lose no money off of me.  But if as a society we took a better stand against these celebrities, musicians, and famous folk for the choices they make and actions they take, maybe our kids would have better role models.

Related articles

• Grammy Ratings Up Thanks To Adele, Whitney Houston Tribute (mtv.com)
• Grammys Offer Adele Sweep, Tributes To Whitney Houston And Etta James (queerty.com)
• Let’s Recap the Grammys (bloglikeitshot.com)
• Crazy Talk: ‘I’d Let Chris Brown Beat Me’ (theroot.com)