(Image from Fashion Oracles)
Hear me out. Unpopular opinion time but if you stick with me you’ll see what I’m saying. I have a pet peeve with the current movement that everyone should be able to be a model because everyone is beautiful. I might get some flack for this so I’m going to conveniently forget who it was and how they were different. But there was a model a while back at New York fashion week to walked the runway and everyone was talking about how beautiful she was. She isn’t. But I want that to be okay. It drives me crazy because, objectively, not everyone is beautiful. (And not everyone finds the same thing or the same attributes attractive or desirable.) The main reason it makes me so irritated though is because of some of the more insidious messages that are behind it. Especially women in our culture are raised to believe that their only value comes from the way they look. What if… wild idea here… not everyone is beautiful. Just like not everyone is good at math and not everyone is good at building things with their hands? Why can we accept that “oh… I’ve always been bad at math” is totally normal and requires no argument. But “oh… I’ve always been a little funny looking” requires someone to say “no! Don’t talk like that! You’re beautiful!” Not to mention I don’t want to have to try to be beautiful. Why do I need to put on makeup in order to appear professional? (Don’t worry, I cut that shit out.)
Even the people that we have decided as a culture are beautiful are then reduced to being nothing but beautiful. Audrey Hepburn is remembered for being beautiful, she was an amazing humanitarian because of growing up in German occupied Belgium. But that’s not sexy. Or Hedy Lamarr who invented technology for radio controlled torpedoes that is still used in modern WIFI. Why are we still shocked that an attractive person is smart? (The list goes on, if you find that interesting I highly recommend some research.)
It has also really bothered me in the music industry. I have had lots of friends who are extremally gifted musicians who were not able to break into the industry. It seems like in (not so) recent years now that music videos are a thing pure musical talent isn’t enough. It is not enough to be a great musician you also have to be culturally attractive and have style and be charming in interviews. I’ve seen amazing musicians who can barely speak to the crowd in between songs. Explain to me why they are less worthy of a career than a musician with less talent who is good at working the crowd.
I agree that representation matters and I love seeing more inclusive casting and yes, even models. (It’s also just helpful as a human in a normal body to see clothes on bodies that are more like mine.) I just hate the standard.
Now the argument against me being mad about saying “everyone is beautiful” would be to add “everyone is beautiful to someone”. Another way that the ideas and communication about beauty can be so toxic is that we learn from a very young age what we’re supposed to like and the reality is that not everyone does like what they are supposed to. When my fist stepdaughter was in high school she was having a really hard time with dating because she was a bigger girl. I used to tell her that there are for sure people at school who were interested in her but they were unwilling to admit it due to social pressure and what they are “supposed” to like. I encountered it when I was in high school and all my male friends were interested in the same girl who was boring and not particularly nice. But she was socially acceptable to like.
At the end of the day can’t we all be different? Can that be okay? Can we not have to be beautiful to have value? Can beauty be about so much more than they way we look? (My favorite Doctor Who quote of all times was said by Amy Pond, “You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful, and then you actually talk to them, and five minutes later they’re dull as a brick. But then there’s other people, and you meet them and you think ‘not bad, they’re okay’, and then you get to know them, and their face sort of becomes them, like their personality’s written all over it, and they just they turn into something so beautiful…”) That is a kind of beauty I can get behind. Show me what a model is about and what she has accomplished that has nothing to do with her face and good genetics. I knew and amazing lingerie model in Los Angeles who was modeling to pay her way through school and become a counselor specializing in working with teenage girls. Tell me that in their bio!
I guess it all relates to how I feel no connection to the body positivity movement because I’m not to a point where I can honestly say I love my body. But I connect deeply with the body neutrality movement because I agree, the way that I look is the least interesting thing about me. Can we please move away from judging the book by its cover and maybe read the synopsis, a review, try a couple pages? I don’t want to be judged by what I look like.
Screaming in the Dark 