Photos of Elon Musk shirtless have been circling online and they are being viciously ridiculed.
To give you a sense of how the internet is feeling about Musk’s shirtless photos. One person tweeted that his shirtless images were “repulsive”; another said that anyone who saw the photos of Musk half naked should be entitled to “compensation”.
The compensation tweet received over 32,000 likes.
It’s an incredibly dangerous rhetoric to be pushing. Twitter is screaming that if a man is enjoying the sun and he doesn’t have abs or a ripped body he should hide himself away and essentially be ashamed of himself.
I understand there’s plenty to dislike about Musk from his political views to his complicated love life or even just the simple fact that he has basically banned his Tesla employees from working from home during a pandemic. But that doesn’t give anyone a pass to body shame Musk.
As a society we seem to feel like if we don’t like people, it gives us the freedom to ridicule their appearance suddenly. Hence why Donald Trump’s body was mocked so largely when he was in office or James Packer’s shirtless body was recently blasted online.
It is also probably why Tanya Plibersek felt comfortable claiming Peter Dutton’s baldness makes him look like Voldemort. It seems that if people feel they have the moral high ground they then have the confidence to poke fun at someone’s appearance.
There is a consensus that if someone is unlikeable, they deserve for their looks to become the punch line. But really all that does is enforce terrible beauty and weight standards. As a plus-size woman, I understand this all too well, growing up when I saw female celebrities’ bodies mocked that looked like mine, it made me feel like there was something wrong with me. Mocking Musk’s body is very likely going to make plenty of young men who have a similar build feel terrible. It’s important to stop and ask, who are these comments really hurting?
It doesn’t matter who you are body shaming or how you determine if they deserve to be shamed it’s still perpetuating the idea that there’s something wrong with a particular body type or weight. Ultimately all it does is send a loud and cruel message to people who have a similar build or body to the person you are shaming that their body is a joke and not good enough.
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Recently, actress Florence Pugh has coped body shaming after she wore a Valentino dress that highlighted her small chest and nipples. She spoke out about it via Instagram and wrote, “What’s been interesting to watch and witness is just how easy it is for men to totally destroy a woman’s body, publicly, proudly, for everyone to see.” People threw their support behind her, because she isn’t controversial so it’s easier to feel protective of her and to want to defend her. But Musk’s body shouldn’t become a joke just because he is a highly controversial billionaire. We shouldn’t take it upon ourselves to bring him down a peg by mentioning he doesn’t have abs; all it does is enforce the idea that there is something inherently wrong with a man’s body if it isn’t thin. Like Pugh said it is unnerving how quickly men will destroy a women’s body both publicly and proudly. But it is also equally horrific how quickly the internet will destroy anyone’s body that isn’t small.
The truth is that the same support should be thrown behind anybody who is being body shamed. There’s so much worth criticising about Musk but his stomach and body isn’t one of them, all bodies should be celebrated and loved.
Mary Madigan is a freelance writer.
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