Beauty- ideals vs. self

[say what]

[video=youtube;zRlpIkH3b5I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRlpIkH3b5I[/video]


Very interesting video. I think a lot of people read through magazines and want to look like the women/men in them, and often wish they could go through the same transformation to look beautiful (heck, I know I do!)...but it's interesting to see the responses of the women who always wanted it, and then saw what it did to them.

Reminds you that beauty is not in the perfections of an individual, but the imperfections.

I would love to know what others think of the video, and their own perspectives of the beauty (ideals vs. self) topic.

 

[Gaze]

I agree with the woman who said it's natural to be critical of ourselves and feel awkward. It's an important message to remind people that being critical does not mean something is wrong or that you need some sort of beauty overhaul. I never thought of myself as beautiful. Maybe attractive, depending on the attention I received. However, the feeling of not feeling beautiful is often tied to the idea that you don't look like the ideal others have for how a woman should look to be healthy and fit, then she's not a complete woman. I think the real critique of these images is not that we want to look beautiful or glamorous, because that can be fun. Nothing is wrong with wanting to be made up, to change our looks. The real issue is promoting the idea that we are not complete or whole women if the physical doesn't match up to an expectation. The ideal to strive for is not only unattainable but will often make someone feel less about who they are rather than accepting the whole self and working with what you got . Airbrushing is about erasing parts of our self to become more acceptable to others, not ourselves. It's not about self confidence or self acceptance. If you're comfortable with yourself, and you have a healthy mindset which indirectly and directly affects how you treat your body, then you'll be fine.

 

[DonTaushMe]

Oh man, I have so many issues with women comparing themselves to models or porn stars..!! Gah! Please please PLEASE don't shave your vagina! Firstly, it's not healthy. You're opening those pores to dirt and grim and sweat and now it's pimply and grotesque and I put my face there! And it's not pleasant to rub your face against stubble, its really really not..!! Lol but aside from porn and weird sexual ideas, I was never really attracted to the models in magazines. I mean, wheres their tits? Tits are amazing! Why would you choose to not grow them??!!

Hahaha I'm hilarious.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so who do you want to attract? Do you want to attract someone who believes you should wear all the make-up you can and get fake tits and bo-tox, or do you want to attract someone who would rather you not wear make-up and loves your body and all its quarks?

I don't know, I'm extremely in love with the female form, in every form. There's this idea against wrinkles, that you should do anything and everything to get rid of them and I don't understand why. My grandmother lived with us for the last ten years of her life and I thought she was beautiful. 80 something year old wrinkly, sagging, sad sack, but she was beautiful to me. To me age is something you wear and, to me, I can see the stories and the stuggles by just looking. Besides that it's going to happen regardless of what you do.

Women are beautiful. I'd give them ever ounce of confidence I have if they let me, but they usually don't listen to me about it, not fully :/

 

[the]

It struck me when the girl with freckles said something about how it took away "who she really is". I can't imagine when asked (prior to this make over) "What or who is the real you?" that she would respond with something along the lines of: "I have freckles, they give me character." That seems like something to not even mention, and it makes me think that the producers somehow (randomly? prob not) picked four girls with a particular pathology of incredibly low self worth and a terribly skewed outlook on who they are, beauty, and especially their own beauty. Also they may be out of touch with reality.

I think if I was a woman I would want to look more like a burlesque gal as a stage and distance from the crowd seems to do the same thing as photoshop. I know that as a man I still kind of want to be one.

After I watched it a second time a girl was concerned that she wasnt a skinny girl and was never going to be. But she still had a flat stomach and big boobs and big hips - AKA the thing skinny girls envy. The video seems like an exercise in 'experience the greener grass on the other side' but they didnt seem to get that they still were beautiful. Which is typical because women are not that smart.

 

[barbad0s]

I don't think that the amount that people are made to be critical of themselves nowadays is natural. The photoshopping and surgery and mass media displaying/glorification of it that goes on is far beyond natural and it creates an unnatural environment where there are more images of very beautiful people out there than ever before for our non-up-to-date biological programming (including the hardware that helps us handle our self-image and self-esteem and stress) to deal with. It's natural to desire to beautify oneself to attract a mate, but how can anyone look at the severe body image issues so many people have today and still consider that to be natural?

 

[sprinkles]

Shopped pictures aren't really that pretty. End of.

 

[tfg345i4u5lw]

The girl at 15 seconds sorta looked like [MENTION=5297]Katniss Neverbeef[/MENTION]

Anyways... I think imperfections make women hotter. There's this chick that works at the local restaurant who has a lazy eye, and she wears these super sexy/nerdy glasses. I have a crush on her, like when I go in I always wonder if she's working and I always want to talk to her. I actually think her lazy eye makes her really hot for some reason... Plus she has a really sweet personality. Im gonna ask her out next time I see her because I recently discovered her BF is a dick.

 

[DonTaushMe]

It struck me when the girl with freckles said something about how it took away "who she really is". I can't imagine when asked (prior to this make over) "What or who is the real you?" that she would respond with something along the lines of: "I have freckles, they give me character." That seems like something to not even mention, and it makes me think that the producers somehow (randomly? prob not) picked four girls with a particular pathology of incredibly low self worth and a terribly skewed outlook on who they are, beauty, and especially their own beauty. Also they may be out of touch with reality.

I think if I was a woman I would want to look more like a burlesque gal as a stage and distance from the crowd seems to do the same thing as photoshop. I know that as a man I still kind of want to be one.

After I watched it a second time a girl was concerned that she wasnt a skinny girl and was never going to be. But she still had a flat stomach and big boobs and big hips - AKA the thing skinny girls envy. The video seems like an exercise in 'experience the greener grass on the other side' but they didnt seem to get that they still were beautiful. Which is typical because women are not that smart.

With women and their imperfections or what they consider to be imperfections, depending on where it is, we have to own it. My sister has freckles and she would get teased about it. Little girls in middle school (ages 10-13) can be shitty to each other, really shitty. And for whatever reason freckles were a bit thing girls got tease for. I don't know if it's that their face is still morphing and it makes the freckles look worse or what, or ya know, people are just dicks to each other. But by the time my sister was 18 she owned her freckles, she had to. You get constantly teased about something that's a part of your face you have to look in the mirror and be comfortable and confident of that thing so the teasing doesn't hurt as much. Lol like [MENTION=10321]Lone Wolf[/MENTION] likes this girl with a lazy eye, which I think is hilariously cute, and I bet she carries herself in a confident manner, or some other manner that Lone Wolf is attracted to. Cause you can't just shut down because you don't think your perfect. So long as you build yourself up people are going to want to be around you, regardless of your imperfections and maybe even because of them.

 

[ThomasJ79]

I just can't believe how much time people are willing to spend on their looks. I can understand looking after basic hygiene and trying to look nice, but people can really go a bit overboard. Even these models, they are often considered to be the most proportional and beautiful already and they still try making themselves look even more beautiful. It's nice to see some actresses and models without makeup because it often shows that they really are beautiful without it. But, sometimes it shows that without all that lighting and makeup they look just like the rest of us.