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Redefining Beauty

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By Talyn Helman

When you think of beauty in American culture, what type of woman have we been conditioned to expect? It seems to be a size 2, tall, blonde, blue eyed, big breasted, and overly eager to please woman, also known as Barbie. That’s what the media has deemed the American Sweetheart, which is what quite a few people see as ideal.

The media has bombarded us with images portraying unbelievably thin, usually blonde women selling everything from clothing to make-up to cars to food, or as the next big thing in the movies. I personally, am so far from that image that it’s a bit funny to think of me even attempting to achieve it without mass amounts of cosmetic surgery and make-up. I’m 5’4, brunette, and there is no way, without starving myself and getting bone shaved off of my hips, that I could ever be below a size 7.

Not much of the world actually fits the mass media’s view of beauty. As one article pointed out, the media is great for the diet industry, which is worth 40-100 billion dollars a year. Women see the images of what perfection should be, which is completely unattainable for most, and buy the newest diet plans, clothes, and/or go into an incredible depression, develop eating disorders, and lose self-esteem. The Anorexia-Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc has stated that one in every four college-aged women uses some form of unhealthy weight loss: not eating, laxative abuse, throwing up, etc. The media should take a pretty good chunk of the blame.

How can we, as a culture, fix this problem? How can we stop thinking that if we “buy this make-up we’ll be beautiful”, or if we “dye our hair this color we’ll be as pretty as her”? We have to redefine what beauty is, or at least recognize alternative forms of it.

As an individual, my ideals of beauty may be different from someone else’s, and I’m perfectly okay with that. To each their own. I look to a website/modeling company called Suicidegirls.com (explicit) as one of my ideas of beauty.

The name is odd and brings about a whole slew of images, which have nothing to do with the site itself. The women on this site are mostly from the “alternative/punk/gothic/rocker” genre. They know who they are, and they’re proud of it. Most sport tattoos, piercings, odd hairstyles, and range in sizes and shapes. They’re definitely not what you would expect to walk down New York City’s Fashion Week Runways. These girls are showing off their unique beauty in many different forums including music videos (in a empowering way, which I love), fashion shows, concerts, and they have created a global community of ‘different’ people.

The site has chat boards dedicated to spirituality, animals, video games, recognizing that their butts may not be tiny and ‘perfect’, etc. Upon first looking at the site, it’s a bit of a shock, yes. A lot of these girls do pose nude for some photos. Amazingly (or not, depending on your view of advertising) the naked photo sets are a lot less crass than most clothing advertisements, and more artistically reminiscent of old school pin-up photos. In a way, it’s a step back to Renaissance artwork, where nudity was considered beautiful, instead of vulgar, and the female shape was something to be celebrated and not put away as taboo and sexually explicit.

If you honestly looked at these girls, what is a more obtainable type of beauty? The cosmetically altered and hungry looking ‘models’, or a group of women who have seen the beauty within themselves and in who they are, and are willing to share that with the world?

1 thought on “Redefining Beauty”

  1. I feel you Talyn. I agree that society has a very unrealistic view of what is beautiful. I am a size 16, African American and I know that I am the bomb!!! My sister is a size 9 and she is the bomb too! I am just saying that fantastic comes in all different shades and shapes…

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