Give Him Some Air: Rapper Dave Blunts Receives Criticism For ...
When you think of your favorite performers, how do you picture them singing to you? Generally speaking, they’re standing or even dancing, right? Well, Dave Blunts recently caused a stir by sitting on a couch onstage for his performance at Juice WRLD Day. Not only was the rapper sitting, he had his medical oxygen tank present with him. Blunts has been open about his health struggles and his efforts to make changes that will hopefully lead to a healthier life in the future, so when he took to the stage to perform in memory of Juice WRLD— a friend of his until his passing in 2019— he made a point to stop and ask the audience if they were ok with him sitting on a couch while he honored his friend. He then reportedly clapped back at Snoop Dog for comments the older rapper has made regarding his weight and use of oxygen. Snoop does a lot of really cool things, but last time we checked, going to medical school wasn’t one of them. So why did he feel so comfortable commenting on someone else’s size and state of health?
Let’s back up a bit before we get into the ableism of it all, shall we? Juice WRLD Day is an annual concert dedicated to Juice WRLD, a beloved musician who passed away at age 21 in 2019 due to overdose. The concert every year is put on not only in the young musician’s memory, but also to highlight the ongoing issues of substance abuse in the music industry. Dave Blunts was close with Juice WRLD, and has been open about his own struggles with his health and substance use. Performing at the annual concert that honors his friend who died due to overdose is a powerful thing not only for him— a fellow musician who is openly fighting his own demons— but also for those who are looking for hope for a healthier music industry.
That said, Blunts may be overweight, but the state of his weight is nobody’s business but his. Alas, he’s a public figure, so his appearance and the state of his health are under constant scrutiny, even from fellow members of the music industry. His use of oxygen at his Juice WRLD Day performance was met with widespread criticism, and like… could we not? Use of medical oxygen is just that; medical. It’s a necessity for some people in order to continue living their life, and it seems especially cruel to be critical of a singer who needs oxygen. What makes a voice work? Air.
Fatphobia is also unfortunately rampant in the discourse surrounding Dave Blunts, which tends to cause people to make assumptions about his health based off of the weight that they see. These statistics contribute towards very real societal harm, and bolster a cultural attitude that suggests that fat people don’t deserve health and proper medical care unless they lose weight.
And I’m sorry; no. People deserve to feel good in the body they have whether that body is thick or thin. Fat people deserve to be seen as people; just people. And people deserve to be able to use the accommodations they need in order to be a person who does what they love.
Body shaming isn’t limited just to people in the public eye. Society has had a strange obsession with physical appearance for centuries. Just 100 years ago, women weren’t considered desirable if they were what today’s peanut gallery would consider “skinny”. The goalposts for what makes the ideal physical appearance keep shifting, but here’s the thing; we could just… stop. Let people be whatever size they are, and leave any comments about their appearance unsaid. Everyone is happier that way, and then we reduce the stigma around being a larger human; and then larger humans stand a chance of being seen as worthy of the same quality of healthcare that smaller humans receive.
Regardless of whether or not someone is a public figure, can we please be done commenting on the bodies and health needs of people we don’t know? It took guts for Dave Blunts to get up on that stage in a non-traditional way, and somewhere out there is someone who needs an oxygen tank in order to go about their day. Blunts won’t see your clever take online about how “pathetic” it was to see a musician using oxygen in order to perform; but that stranger on medical oxygen? They just might see your judgement, and decide that maybe they don’t deserve to have the same kind of access to the world that able-bodied people do. Knock it off, and leave discussions of weight between the individual involved, and their care team.
