The song “Prom Queen” was released on August 10th, 2018 by Lili Trifilio, who uses the name Beach Bunny, for her band. Trifilio began releasing music on her own in 2015, and began releasing music with her current band in 2017. None of Beach Bunny’s previous songs had reached 50 million streams on Spotify, but Prom Queen was a breakthrough. As of April 27th, 2022 the song has 218,116,371 streams, more than quadrupling her previous songs!
The song addresses common teenage struggles of wanting to be thin, in general, and in this instance for the upcoming dance, prom. Trifilio sings about the social pressures of being thin, and placing too much weight on the actual weight of yourself. The song blew up on Tiktok, which is no coincidence considering Tiktok is a social media platform by majority used by the teenager/young adult community. The song resonated with many teenage users, who posted videos relating to the lyrics. The sound has been used 105,200 times as of April 27th, 2022.
Trifilio starts the song out with the line: “Shut up, count your calories” already alluding to her struggling with body images. As the song progresses, we get more detail, “Wish I was like you, blue-eyed blondie, perfect body” and “I was never cut out for prom queen” she explains how she isn’t stick thin so the public would never choose her to be prom queen.
She then starts talking about how she feels like she has to be thin for boys to like her. She expresses that through the lines “If I’m pretty, will you like me?” Following with “They say, “Beauty makes boys happy”. This is a common and such a sad societal norm that I think directly connects to the Fat studies we did towards the end of February. Specifically, the conversation we had in class relating to the Jezebel article about the history of deodorants and how it relates to diets.
Just like advertisements made women feel like they had to wear deodorant to be attractive, and appeal to sexual partners, advertisements and media have done the same thing for body weight. The advertisers have invented a problem, not being stick-thin, in order to sell products, such as diet meal plans, or waist trainers, but in doing so, they’ve made a profitable income but also damaged our generation and so many to come. Teenagers are reached within the song prom queen, but people of all ages are so concerned with being thin in order to attract a partner, when in reality, by feeding into this, we are letting the advertisers win and profit.
Trifilio closes out the song talking about how she is starving herself and the final lines read “They say beauty is pain, you’ll only be happy if you look a certain way. I wanna be ok. I wanna be ok”. Trifilio wants to be comfortable in her own skin so badly, but because society tells her she must look a certain way, she is unsatisfied.
Lili, Trifilio. “Beach Bunny- Prom Queen (Official Video).” Youtube, Beach Bunny, December 31, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc6SSu5pnHw.
Kot, Greg. “Meet Chicago’s Newest Rising Band Beach Bunny.” Chicago Tribune, 5 Feb. 2020, https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/greg-kot/ct-ent-beach-bunny-0209-20200206-te2hfolpy5hxtaa3cei3st7gru-story.html.
You did a great job in presenting one of the growing problems of “beauty standard” in accordance soctoiety’s expectations, especially to teenage people. You presented a great example of a youtube video and a TikTok as well, the lyrics in the youtube video and the TikTok well present the constant struggle of teenage people wanting to be thin and in a certain way to attract people. Such has led to so many problems, insecurities, and low self-esteem and has impacted the mental well-being of many people. Overall, this is very relevant to today’s world.
As someone who works closely with middle-school-aged girls, I can see the impact of societal beauty standards so clearly. You’d be amazed by how much even young girls compare themselves to others, especially those who fit into society’s “perfect” vision of beauty. This song does a great job acknowledging those impacts and the mindset that they can create. Awesome post!
This is a great analysis and super relevant to discussions we are having as a class, and as a society. Like many listeners, this song really resonated with me because of the society’s beauty standards. The line “maybe I should try harder,” relates directly to Fat Studies, as you mentioned. It is common in our fatphobic society for fat people to be labeled as lazy and it is the expectation that if someone tries hard enough then they can be thin. This perpetuates the view that there is something wrong with individuals, when in reality, there is something wrong with society. Your analysis does an excellent job of highlighting those negative impacts.
Interesting and heartbreaking analysis. It reminds me a lot to “The Tragedy of Heterosexuality” by Ward, in which she talsk about howw much women lose in heterosexual relations. Your analysis is clear evidence that women lose even before getting into a relation, and this is a normalised price to be paid.
This is a very relevant analysis! Even in our changing culture that embraces body positivity, I feel like the majority of youth still have deep insecurities rooted in generational shame over fatness. Like mentioned in Fat Studies, I also think that people of all sizes struggle with the impossible expectations of beauty standards and societal norms over bodily appearance. I also wonder how race might be relevant in this discussion and how existing in a body of color might influence experiences with fatphobia. How might the racial origins of fatphobia, mentioned in Fearing the Black Body, translate in everyday life for children from all types of backgrounds?