The other day, my sister told me excitedly that she had tickets to see a band called The Gossip. “Who?” I asked. “Don’t you know who they are? You have a picture of them on your fridge.” I will confess that I cut out the picture and put it on my fridge because I liked the picture; the singer is a hot, full-figured woman. And now that I’ve read this article, I know that her name is Beth Ditto. And that she’s awesome.

“An outspoken advocate of gay rights, Ditto is frank about her sexuality, just as she’s prone to stripping down to her underwear onstage, the better to throw her 225 pounds into the band’s music. She doesn’t mince words — she’s queer and she’s fat — and if you have a problem with that, you’d better get out of her way…’As for the issue of size acceptance and being fat, I don’t get pigeonholed with that, because you know what? That pigeonhole doesn’t even exist! I understand people who object when writers mention it, like ‘Why should it matter?’ But the world of pop culture is still not ready to accept these things; they’re still an issue. So go ahead and pigeonhole me. When I’m onstage, it’s like, “You will respect me!”‘”

There’s a picture of her with the article, but here is the one I had on my fridge. (Which strikes me as funny all of a sudden. It’s like the opposite of putting a bikini model on your fridge. Like, “Look at Beth Ditto, she’s fabulous! Have some ice cream.”) And if you go to their Myspace page, you can hear some of their songs.

Posted by mo pie

Filed under: Fat Positive, Music