Full marks to the Magic Numbers for refusing to perform on Top of the Pops after presenter Richard Bacon (an idiotic slip of a thing) described them as "fat". While it is undeniable that three of the four numbers are rather more full-figured than your average pop zombie, the band has earned the right to be measured on their achievements rather than being sniggered at for their weight. In other words, they might have had to swallow that crap in the playground, but they don't have to swallow it now.
Even so, today's news does highlight the dearth of rounded pop musicians. Fattism remains rife in an industry where most hopefuls still aspire to the "thin white duke" notion of what a pop icon should look like (hollow of cheek and snaky of hip). Culturally, it seems that we are still spooked by the ghost of Elvis, whose journey from bantamweight dynamo to rhinestone-studded doughnut stands as a cautionary lesson for anyone who's ever strapped on a guitar.
Rather warily, a colleague suggests that fat black singers are regarded with more tolerance than their white counterparts, citing the likes of Barry White, Solomon Burke, Biggie Smalls, Mary J Blige, Aretha Franklin and Chubby Checker as evidence. Why might this be so? Could it have something to do with black music's roots in the more open, easy traditions of blues and gospel, where a singer's age and weight mattered less than the quality of their larynx? Or might it come down to the still more charged nature of racial body image, and the possibility that while the likes of Beyonce and Serena Williams are deemed to be fine role models for the black community the whiteys must make do with Kate Moss and Gwyneth Paltrow?
This is a thorny, fatty subject. The more we mull it over, the deeper into the minefield we find ourselves. Each stab at the keyboard risks veering into a dubious argument about eugenics, or threatens to outrage round-figured readers and get us slapped with a fatwa. Please God, someone help us out of this debate. I fear that we have bitten off more than we can chew.
