Latest news with #MaryBethMonaco-Vavrik
New York Post
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Are Pilates the preserve of fascists? Or are Gen Z spending waaay too much time analyzing instead of enjoying themselves
If you've signed up for Pilates recently, your fascism is showing through your cute matching leggings and sports bra set. And that jogging habit you picked up during the last election cycle? You need to look yourself in the mirror, you authoritarian scum. That's the only takeaway from MaryBeth Monaco-Vavrik, a barre instructor and fitness influencer living in Washington DC. Advertisement In April, she dropped a video asking her 17k Instagram followers, 'Does anyone want me to explain the connection between the popularization of Pilates & running instead of strength training… and the rise of extreme American authoritarianism?' 5 Influencer adn content creator MaryBeth Monaco-Vavrick posted a video inserting politics into exercise preferences, specifically pilates. @ No, but please go on. Advertisement With all the robust life experience of an extremely online 24-year-old whose mind was clearly programmed during the great awokening, she dropped some serious gobbledygook that showed her real expertise isn't fitness but audacious confidence. Which is why her video was met with backlash and prompted a piece in the New York Times this week asking, 'Is Pilates Political?' 'There is a DIRECT correlation between a rise in conservatism (think 1950s housewife) and smaller bodies and liberal swings during the feminist waves in the 70s with more muscular frames,' she wrote in her half-baked caption; trying to, I guess, link conservatism to 'extreme authoritarianism.' Yet showing no correlation. No substance. Advertisement 5 The popularity of Pilates can not be disputed but one influencer caused a debate by tying it to 'the rise of extreme American authoritarianism. Jacob Lund – In was an encouraging sign, that her theory raised eyebrows, a nice departure from 2019 and 2020 when the trend in media was to indulge in performative atonement by racializing every nook of our society. Publications pumped out story after story saying hobbies and individual physical pursuits were rife with bigotry. One of the many examples is the 2020 Runner's World piece, 'For BIPOC, Running—and Its Online Forums—Is Not a Refuge From Racial Discrimination.' There were think pieces about such ugly systemic racism in hiking, birding and skiing. Google knitting and racism and you'll be hit with pages of think pieces from 2019 about what Vox described as: 'The Knitting community is reckoning with racism.' Advertisement In 2025 we're more sober minded, and the push to racialize and politicize everything is met with laughter, not more examples. That's a good thing. Not every roll up in the Pilates studio is a pledge to uphold a dark ideology. In the Times piece Monaco-Vavrick explained that her beef was with marketing of Pilates and how it was pushed online with — gasp — lean white women. She didn't like its 'coded' methods telling women they needed to take up less space. Don't get buff, ladies. She describes it using progressive buzzwords like 'whiteness,' 'exclusionary' and 'thinness.' 5 Running along with pilates were singled out by Monaco-Vavrick as signs of extreme American authoritarianism. Kzenon – Instead of getting swole, women were being 'pushed toward just taking a Pilates class and getting a smoothie afterward,' she said. 'What does it say about our culture that these are the things being pushed,' asked the influencer. Advertisement Oh, the tyranny of Pilates and smoothies… It says that life here is pretty damn good — and we likely have too much time on our hands. Or maybe, just maybe, after years of 'fatness as fitness' being pushed in the media and in academia, culture is swinging back to a common sense approach to health. People don't want to look like obese slobs. And many women, regardless of race, class and religion, want the strength and sinewy arms that come with a Pilates practice. Advertisement But these faux scholarly online proclamations plays into something I've noticed with a lot of Gen Zers on social media — and many interactions I've had in real life. 5 MaryBeth Monaco-Vavrick is very fit and very Gen Z in her approach to social media and the act of overanalyzing everything. @ This generation was raised as digital natives in a very indulgent world that not only normalized unsolicited online opinions but monetizes them. It's produced a ridiculous obsession with overanalyzing everything from exercise, dating, sex and, yes, smoothies. Useless hashtags are slapped on these overwrought explanations and dubious hot takes are sent out into the world in the hopes of achieving virality. Advertisement Most of the time, it's imbuing deeper meaning where there isn't one. And let's be honest: our online world has been customized for our demographic and our interests. Many slurp up whatever slop the algorithm feeds us without looking outside of the echo chamber. And frankly, it delivers a myopic view. For instance, as a middle-aged woman who should be worried about bone density, my Instagram feed features Pilates but it is dominated by chicks weight training, the activity Monaco-Vavrick ostensibly says the authoritarians don't want women to see. 5 MaryBeth Monaco-Vavrick argues that pilates is being pushed onto women because in a conservative America, women are told to not take up space. photology1971 – Advertisement In fact, if another video about weighted vests across my feed, I'm gonna toss mine out my back door, not find some tenuous link between their popularity and the military industrial complex. Before social media removed useful gatekeepers, one was expected to have some bit of life experience to weave together a great think piece and thank god for that. Cultural discourse benefited. But with social media, everyone is a scholar, an 'influencer', but mostly shoveling whatever derivative drivel they heard on another TikTok video. And there's loads of younger folks — and yes people my age as well — too busy online analyzing life, instead of simply just getting out and living it. So, my advice: If you can afford a Pilates reformer class, take it. Run or lift weights. Just don't serve us up with a doctoral dissertation about it all.
Indian Express
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Is Pilates political?
In early April, MaryBeth Monaco-Vavrik, a 24-year-old barre instructor and fitness influencer living in Washington, D.C., was sitting at the airport waiting for a flight to board when she had an idea for an Instagram Reel. Monaco-Vavrik studied political science and communications at Davidson College. It became a habit, she said in a recent interview, to 'always connect random things that don't seem to relate.' In that moment, she juxtaposed two concepts that had been on her mind: Pilates and President Donald Trump. Grinning at the camera, and lip-syncing to a popular TikTok clip about the Broadway musical 'Wicked,' Monaco-Vavrik made her case: 'Does anyone want me to explain the connection between the popularization of Pilates & running instead of strength training … and the rise of extreme American authoritarianism?' She elaborated in the caption, saying that conservatism was correlated to 'smaller bodies,' and that curves were out and heroin chic was back in. Given our current political climate, she did not think it was surprising that the trend for 'Pilates arms' among 'Pilates girlies' was surging. Monaco-Vavrik was new to content creation in the fitness space — she posted her first Instagram Reels, focused on training tips and exercise advice, in February — and this particular post was, she said, somewhat spur of the moment. 'I made that Reel in five minutes sitting at the airport, just to put it out there,' she said. 'I was just like, 'Why not?'' She was not prepared for the reaction: 2 million views in two days, and nearly 5 million as of this writing. Her idea spread widely — but not because everyone agreed. Some Pilates enthusiasts called it nonsense. Others said they just wanted to be healthy and feminine. 'I was accused of being a misogynist,' Monaco-Vavrik said. 'I was accused of hating women.' The tenor of the comments ranged from skepticism to personal affront. Many were outraged by the suggestion that they might be supporters of Trump, while others seemed irritated by the notion that a form of exercise could be described in partisan terms. 'The backlash was a lot,' Monaco-Vavrik said. 'I think it just deeply offended these wealthier white women who claim progressive alignment but just really couldn't see what I was saying.' More alarmingly, she said the backlash soon followed her offline. Other trainers at the studio where she taught barre admonished her over her remarks, and she said that the post even had consequences for her career, claiming that it was cited as a reason for her not getting a job in marketing with a fitness brand. It was the full viral experience. 'At first, it was great because it was like, 'Yay, people are seeing my page,'' she said. 'Then it was like, 'Crap, now I'm unemployed.'' Pilates was developed in Europe in the 1920s by Joseph Pilates, a German self-defense coach who originally called the fitness program 'Contrology.' While Pilates wrote books on the subject, and instructed dancers in his program from his New York City studio after World War II, it was not until the 1990s, decades after his death, that the program entered the mainstream, finding widespread purchase alongside a surge in popularity for yoga. More recently, Pilates has picked up some momentum: In 2024, the fitness platform ClassPass said Pilates was the most popular class type of the year. Pilates classes today are more accessible than ever, offered at dedicated studios, franchises like Club Pilates and gym chains like Equinox and Gold's Gym. Whether that popularity can be attributed to the current political climate, however, is slightly less clear. 'I have never heard that, nor have I ever seen any connection,' said Amy Nelms, the owner of the New York City Pilates studio Flatiron Pilates, her eyes widening in disbelief as the idea was laid out to her. 'I can't imagine Donald Trump doing Pilates.' For Monaco-Vavrik, the problem is not the exercise itself but the way it has been promoted. 'Pilates is great for your core strength, and for people who are suffering from connection tissue weakness, etc.,' she said. 'But how do we separate that from the fact that its marketing is extremely exclusionary? It's extremely whitewashed. It's based on wealth. It's based on thinness.' Still, she conceded that the nuances of her point might have been lost in what seemed like an accusation against Pilates enthusiasts. 'It's not about your personal political affiliation,' she said. 'No one goes to Pilates thinking, 'I'm going to be a fascist today.'' She said the way it was marketed was separate from the exercise itself. 'That maybe didn't come across very well,' she added, referring to the message in her post. Much of this 'marketing' is in fact an amorphous mass of social media content, produced by Pilates influencers who self-identify as 'Pilates girlies' or 'Pilates princesses.' On TikTok, content creators offer advice on how to achieve 'Pilates arms' — lean, sinewy biceps that do not appear overtly muscular — or, more broadly, a 'Pilates body,' which typically just means thin. Monaco-Vavrik worried that these were coded ways to tell women they needed to make themselves small and take up less space — that rather than building strength by lifting weights, women were being 'pushed toward just taking a Pilates class and getting a smoothie afterward,' she said. 'What does it say about our culture that these are the things being pushed?' Anita Chahaun, a Pilates fan in Toronto who has her certification in the program, said that she found Monaco-Vavrik's argument 'a bit tenuous,' but agreed that 'there is something to unpack about the aesthetics and accessibility of Pilates, especially in its current cultural moment.' From her perspective as a woman of color, Chahuan said, 'Pilates does still feel like a predominantly white and wealthier space,' with clientele and instructors who are 'overwhelmingly white, often thin and usually conforming to a very specific wellness aesthetic.' 'The broader wellness industry's obsession with control, thinness and optimization can overlap uncomfortably with exclusionary or even fascist frameworks,' she added. 'So, while I don't think Pilates is inherently authoritarian, it's definitely been packaged in ways that align with those values.' For some people who saw Monaco-Vavrik's video, the very idea of connecting politics and Pilates was objectionable, even if there was reason to believe otherwise. 'I think for a long time, there was a tendency to think that fitness isn't political, it's just working out,' said Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a professor of history at the New School and the author of the book 'Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession.' 'But fitness is always tied up with power dynamics and society, and it's often much more than just the gym.' Petrzela said there was something to the point Monaco-Vavrik had raised. 'I do think that when you look at the dominant aesthetics and messaging around Pilates princesses or Pilates girlies, it definitely upholds very traditional aesthetics of female beauty,' she said. But she was willing to concede the idea only up to a point. 'I appreciate that kind of analysis, but it kind of falls apart when you look deeply at it,' she said. 'Perhaps most foundationally because Pilates does get you very, very strong. Pilates is a really intense workout.' 'Make sure you include that I said Pilates is hard,' Petrzela added with a laugh. 'They'll come for me otherwise.' Though it has been months since her post first gained attention, Monaco-Vavrik's Reel continues to attract views and stoke debate, even if she is no longer directly engaging with it. 'I haven't looked at the comments in a while because they make me so angry,' she said. She made a follow-up video elaborating on the idea, hoping to cut down on some of the confusion, but, she said, 'a lot of people just kind of misconstrue what I said.' Of course, having whipped up the initial Reel in a few minutes, Monaco-Vavrik will be the first to admit that her argument may not be ironclad. Still, her instincts tell her that she had the right idea. 'It's like, again, I can't exactly prove it,' she said. 'I can't prove it, but like, no, I know it's there. I know that the orderliness, the gracefulness, the quietness, the minimalism — it's all just, like, connected.'
