This video has been making the rounds on FaceBook for a while now, and at the time I am writing this post, it has had over 4,500,000 views. So, chances are that you’ve seen it before. If you haven’t, it’s definitely worth the 1:15 minutes of your time.
There are lots of campaigns out there showing how distorted our images of beauty are. All the time we hear, “learn to love yourself as you are” and “embrace your inner beauty.” But, how do we do that exactly? Is there something more that we can teach ourselves, and our children? Is there a positive action we can take? As it is, I feel like women not only want to look like this fictional version of beauty but we are also made to feel guilty for wanting it! Simply telling ourselves not to want something, or trying to argue away our wants with logic, doesn’t work. (It’s called “ironic process theory,” a psychological process whereby an individual’s deliberate attempts to suppress or avoid certain thoughts [thought suppression] render those thoughts more persistent.)
The next time you see an ad featuring a beautiful woman, tune in to your mind chatter. My mind chatter while watching this video involves angry thoughts (how dare people deceive us like this), thoughts of stupidity (why do I want to look like this, don’t I realize it’s not real?) and guilty thoughts (why am I still concerned about my appearance? am I perpetuating a stereotype?) But, none of those thoughts do anything to improve my self image. Honestly, internal work (journaling, meditating, doing yoga) has improved my self image more than anything. Oh, and age – I’m becoming more comfortable with myself as I get older.
What is your mind chatter when you look at “doctored” images of beauty? What recommendations do you have for people who may be struggling with their self image?
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Thanks for the comment! I do think that at the root of the issue is a sense that we are “not enough” as ourselves. Wanting to look like the image on the billboard, feeling guilty or stupid for wanting to look that way, it’s all a message that we are “wrong” somehow and need to be changed. “What we resists persists” is another way of stating the “ironic process theory” – the more we focus on the beauty culture, whether it’s to embrace or fight it, the more it persists.
For me, it’s an interesting look at process–how the final image gets made. It’s a false image in every sense of the word, for sure. Why this particular look is thought to be “beautiful” is a hard question. I’m looking at it from the outside, to some extent–I don’t wear makeup or use these products, and I’m male, so my image worries are different. But I also perceive the final image of the model to be “beautiful”, even though I just watched the process whereby a perfectly attractive (and normal-looking) young woman’s image is transformed into this rather unnatural-looking final product.
I’ve wondered about this issue for years. When I was in school, I knew two sisters who were known for the extent and complexity of their makeup. During a late-night fire alarm warning, when all students had to leave their dorms, I ran into them, and I literally did not recognize them for several minutes–they’d had to run out in the middle of the night, see, “unprepared”. They were scared about the fire alarm, but they were also obviously uncomfortable and maybe ashamed of being seen “undressed”–that’s how one sister put it. They were very pretty young women, I thought, and I was sorry to see them “dressed” again the next day–it just looked fake to me after that.
I guess the thought uppermost in my mind is that this video, as interesting as it is, is still just an advertisement for a brand name. So whatever truths it might point to are suspect, as far as I’m concerned, because at the end of the day, the purpose of the video, *whatever else it might accomplish* is to increase visibility for that brand. I’d be willing to bet that the company sponsoring the video offers some “natural beauty” products or something like that at their “real beauty workshops”, something that would tie into the video’s message and offer a “solution” to the “problem” presented–marketing 101.