A Question of Beauty
Have you seen the YouTube video for the Dove Real Beauty Sketches campaign? I saw it linked a few times on Facebook. I finally watched it a couple of days ago, and at first I was really touched by the message. What a wonderful idea, one that many of us in this image conscious world need to hear-- that we are more beautiful than we think we are. Today I was watching it one more time (only directly on the YouTube page) and I made the mistake of dropping down to read some of the comments.
I KNOW better than to read the comments on any site on the internet that gets more than a a few dozen readers. But I did it anyway.
The first dozen or so were all expressing what I felt-- a sense of being moved or touched, maybe even a shift of the way they think of themselves. But then I read a simple comment by a man who said something to the effect that he couldn't help but think the artist was influenced by the fact that he knew the second sketches were supposed to be prettier.
It was like having cold water thrown in my face.
All the sense of "Maybe I am more beautiful than I think" turned to "Oh, I guess I'm not. It was just a trick."
So easy to ignore all the positive comments and hone in on the one that expresses criticism! (I know what that says about me too. . . .) But as I was typing this I realized one critical thing that refutes that whole argument. I looked closely at those sketches the second time around, as well as the women whose portraits they were. And every single woman looked more like that prettier sketch. It didn't matter if the artist knew he was supposed to be creating a nicer looking picture the second time around. The sketches looked more like what the women really appeared in reality.
Why am I letting myself get hung up on a question of beauty anyway? Does it matter?
It matters. It matters to me anyway. I wish I could just say that all beauty is inner and I really don't care what I look like on the outside. It's just not true. Not that I spend a lot of time on my appearance. But for whatever reason, be it the culture that I grew up in, some instinct or another, or just because I am shallow, I want to feel like I am beautiful.
Terence and I even had an argument about this one the way home from church today. I'm lucky enough to be married to a man who constantly affirms that I am beautiful (and has our whole marriage, no matter what I looked like). And he gets so frustrated because I have such a hard time believing him. Anyway, today's argument was because I used the F word. Ok, Ok, I'm not fat. And I didn't say I was . . .exactly. I just made a comment about how frustrated I was with the non-moving number on the scale and how I didn't want to go through the week feeling fat.
Terence just about exploded at me. I think deep down he's a little afraid that I'll end up with an eating disorder. I don't think he needs to be concerned. I still have a pretty healthy relationship with food. But I'm unhappy with that number on the scale because it's still almost 15 lbs above the "high" range of what those stupid BMI tables say I should weigh for my height. Never mind that I have lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off. It's just that I can't quite get back down to where I was before I had S. And I'm tired of feeling that whether or not I look nice has to do with that stupid number, but I can't seem to argue myself out of it, silly as it may be.
Weight, beauty, confidence, health, peace-- these are all tied up together for me and I can't quite seem to untangle them.
I KNOW better than to read the comments on any site on the internet that gets more than a a few dozen readers. But I did it anyway.
The first dozen or so were all expressing what I felt-- a sense of being moved or touched, maybe even a shift of the way they think of themselves. But then I read a simple comment by a man who said something to the effect that he couldn't help but think the artist was influenced by the fact that he knew the second sketches were supposed to be prettier.
It was like having cold water thrown in my face.
All the sense of "Maybe I am more beautiful than I think" turned to "Oh, I guess I'm not. It was just a trick."
So easy to ignore all the positive comments and hone in on the one that expresses criticism! (I know what that says about me too. . . .) But as I was typing this I realized one critical thing that refutes that whole argument. I looked closely at those sketches the second time around, as well as the women whose portraits they were. And every single woman looked more like that prettier sketch. It didn't matter if the artist knew he was supposed to be creating a nicer looking picture the second time around. The sketches looked more like what the women really appeared in reality.
Why am I letting myself get hung up on a question of beauty anyway? Does it matter?
It matters. It matters to me anyway. I wish I could just say that all beauty is inner and I really don't care what I look like on the outside. It's just not true. Not that I spend a lot of time on my appearance. But for whatever reason, be it the culture that I grew up in, some instinct or another, or just because I am shallow, I want to feel like I am beautiful.
Terence and I even had an argument about this one the way home from church today. I'm lucky enough to be married to a man who constantly affirms that I am beautiful (and has our whole marriage, no matter what I looked like). And he gets so frustrated because I have such a hard time believing him. Anyway, today's argument was because I used the F word. Ok, Ok, I'm not fat. And I didn't say I was . . .exactly. I just made a comment about how frustrated I was with the non-moving number on the scale and how I didn't want to go through the week feeling fat.
Terence just about exploded at me. I think deep down he's a little afraid that I'll end up with an eating disorder. I don't think he needs to be concerned. I still have a pretty healthy relationship with food. But I'm unhappy with that number on the scale because it's still almost 15 lbs above the "high" range of what those stupid BMI tables say I should weigh for my height. Never mind that I have lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off. It's just that I can't quite get back down to where I was before I had S. And I'm tired of feeling that whether or not I look nice has to do with that stupid number, but I can't seem to argue myself out of it, silly as it may be.
Weight, beauty, confidence, health, peace-- these are all tied up together for me and I can't quite seem to untangle them.
Comments
I think its part of the "opposition in all things." Our bodies our a gift and I'm thankful for that gift. But its hard sometimes to overlook the crow's feet and cellulite.