Informative Writing Assignment #4

As part of my informal assignment, I chose the artist who is very unique in style and different when it comes to expressing her thoughts, Leslie Hall. She first caught my attention with her awkward image that includes herself wearing these very bright pink sweat suits. With her larger size, you wouldn’t expect her to wear some of the stuff that she had on, in front page of her website: Hairstyle that’s awkwardly slicked backed on top, but down on the side. Glasses that look like goggles that you would wear in a chemistry class, to protect your eyes. Lipstick color so bright, that it prominently shows her pale skin tone. Pink Sweat suits that fit awkwardly on a larger woman like herself. Also, so tight that her hands don’t even go inside of her pants. Lastly, a gold belt that would go well with a dress, instead of the pink sweat suits. Hilariously, this was my first image of Leslie Hall. As I went on a tour in her website to find out what she was all about, my perspective of her and her arts was highly interesting.

First art that I visited was her video called, “Tight Pants/Body Rolls”. The song itself was very catchy and fun to listen to. Music video was a little disruptive but funny as well. As I was watching the video, I was trying to find out what her perspective was for the assignment. With her tight yellow jump suits that awkwardly fitted her larger body, I tried to think if there’s any celebrity who’s similar to Leslie Hall. I couldn’t think of anyone. However, what I noticed was that her back dancers were small through using our latest technology. Therefore, I realized that she was trying to make herself much bigger than the dancers and her normal self. Through that, I think that her perspective was that, the music industry and the media don’t accept larger women. Not only music industry and the media, but also even those who religiously watch this so called television, don’t accept neither. With the help of her lyrics, I was able to fully believe that her perspective was what I believed to be. Her lyrics were mostly about her oversized body. For example, part of her lyrics she says, “My legs in those pants are dream, when I would move I scream, WATCH OUT FOR MY BODY ROLL, WATCH OUT FOR MY BODY ROLL, HIGH KICK, HIGH KICK, THIS IS HOW WE DO IT!” Another example, part of her lyrics she says, “When I place my legs in the cage of spandex, I dance like hell to release my madness…” Not only she physically gave the viewers clues of what her perspective was, she was stated them through her lyrics. Although it might sound as if she is just trying to be funny and resisting from our society, it is clear that her perspective is true. I believe that not only media but everywhere we go, we tend to identify those who are oversized as someone different or stay away from. Most of us watch televisions and computers and we believe what we see unconsciously. Therefore, when the media is neglecting oversized women, then it is possible that the viewers could learn to think the same. Overall, we shouldn’t be identifying larger women any different than skinnier women because in the end, we are all equal.

Second art that I visited was her video called, “Gravel in my shoes”. This song wasn’t as interesting as her previous video, “Tight Pants/Body Rolls”. However it had a different perspective to it. This video, she identified herself as a very poor countrywomen who lived with her husband, who treated her as if she was his slave. He was oversized and lazy who never got his own drinks. It was different than our normal views on our television. We never really watch an artist who likes to express their miserable life or how bad of a husband that they have. Instead, our media and society want to hear and see who has the most money, cars, drugs, and even girls, who they refer to as hoes. I believe that her perspective through this video is that our society/media want us to forget about the reality and struggles that many of us experience. As most of us know that what we see in the music videos and TV shows are as real as celebrities’ noses, jaws, and chins. But if we continue to believe what the media is trying to make us believe, then it’s almost sad to say that we’re simply ignorant and arrogant. Like I stated earlier based on Leslie Hall’s arts, we’re all equal and we should be accepting the reality instead of living in our dreams. We live when we wake up from our dream, but we don’t have to stop dreaming to live.