Review: America the Beautiful

One of the first questions Darryl Roberts asks in his documentary America the Beautiful is “Who benefits from women not feeling beautiful?” As the film spends the next 105 minutes trying to find the answers to that question, you witness the full impact of our obsession with beauty through tales of girls with eating disorders, plastic surgeries gone wrong, and the whirlwind modeling career of Gerren Taylor who did her first runway shows at the age of 12.

Roberts, who undertook this project after the search for the perfect women led him down an empty road filled with false promises of happiness, examines the different industries that benefit from America’s preoccupation with perfection. One 12-year-old boy interviewed in the film sums it up quite simply when he says “companies put people down to make money”. He realizes already that the more people feel bad about themselves, the more they will seek products and services to improve their self image.  This might explain that while America has 5% of the world’s population, we are exposed to 40% of the world’s advertising. Talking about creating a perfect image, world-renowned fashion photographer Marc Baptiste remarks “at the end of the day, we’re selling dreams”. But of course, they are dreams that can never be realized.

As Roberts follows Gerren’s pursuit of her own dream of becoming a super model, he interweaves her tale with a closer look at the cosmetics industry, the media and their role in creating unattainable expectations for both men and women and the toll that is taken, physically and mentally on our society.

America the Beautiful features insightful interviews of people from all sides of the issue. There is the guy who starts out saying “my idea of a perfect women is, first of all, she’s gotta be hot,” raising the question “is this the person for whom we are trying so hard to reach perfection?” There are interviews with representatives from the media industry some of whom admit to some amount of culpability, while others laugh at the mere suggestion that media has any role on the behaviors of those to whom it is targeted. (Of course, isn’t that why advertising exists in the first place?) We also meet plastic surgeons, toxicologists, and various girls and women who can only see their shortcomings.

My favorite interview though is with Eve Ensler who wrote and performed in the play The Vagina Monologues. As someone who has achieved great success and has been such a strong voice for empowering women worldwide, she would seem above suffering from a poor body image. And yet her description of a conversation with a woman in Africa about not knowing how to love her own body makes the viewer realize that even the strongest of women are vulnerable to the idea that there is such a thing as the perfect body.

Ultimately though she realizes that we all have a vision problem. “Every woman is beautiful in her particular way; if we developed eyes and we develop spirit, we would see that every woman is beautiful.” This statement alone really sums up the whole point of the film, but equally profound is her comment on plastic surgery: “Stop fixing yourself. You were never broken.”

Roberts spends considerable time delving into the darker side of plastic surgery — a side to which every woman considering any procedure should become acquainted. We learn that, thanks to a FTC ruling in 1977, anyone with an M.D. can hang a sign up on their door saying they are a plastic surgeon and start doing business. And there is no end to the procedures that can be done to “enhance” one’s features, including creating “designer vaginas”. But as Eve Ensler says, “to think you’re not tight enough, well, get a bigger dick.”

The film also highlights some startling statistics like the fact that in 2004 Americans spent $12.4 billion on cosmetic surgery, while the estimated cost for basic nutrition and health care in developing countries is $13 billion. In addition, we spend over $45 billion per year on cosmetic and beauty products. And yet, we put little thought into exactly what it is we are applying to our skin. According to Roberts’ research, there are 884 toxic ingredients found in cosmetics. While the EU has banned 450 ingredients commonly used in cosmetics, including the phthalates which have been shown to be toxic to the reproductive system, the FDA has banned only 6 ingredients and continues to allow phthalates which of course the cosmetic industry still argues are perfectly safe.

At one point in the movie, after we question if a woman who has just undergone plastic surgery will awake from anesthesia — which ultimately is what carries the most risk in plastic surgery procedures — Darryl Roberts says he called every man he knew and told them to tell every woman they know that they are beautiful exactly the way they are.

Going back to the beginning of the movie, Roberts draws a correlation between women gaining the right to vote, and the introduction of the Miss America Pageant, suggesting that to keep women from gaining too much power, women were becoming more suppressed by the burden of beauty, requiring a whole new level of preoccupation. I have now seen this movie three times, and each time I am left wondering how much we could change the world if we took all the time, effort, and money that we devote to beauty, and put it towards something important, like world hunger, basic human rights and the protection of our environment. Perhaps one day self-improvement will be equated with improving the lives of those around us, and Robert’s film will remind you that your own beauty has less to do with looking like the photo-shopped pages of a magazine, and more to do with what you radiate from within.

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Could the Tide Be Turning?

First there was the image of Lizzie Miller, sitting naked, belly resting on her lap, and looking confident in the pages of Glamour magazine. After a huge response with women crying for more “Lizzie Millers”, Glamour responded with a commitment to feature more of a variety of body shapes and sizes within the pages of their magazines. Then there was designer Mark Fast’s move to feature plus-sized models on the runway during London’s Fashion Week. Not long after that, we heard that France is debating a law requiring magazines to display health warning labels on altered images in an attempt to dispel the beauty myths propagated by magazines. And now this week, one of Germany’s most popular women’s fashion magazines, Birgitte, announced it would no longer use models in photo spreads, instead planning on using readers and staff members, recognizing that “attractiveness has many faces”.

I am hesitant to hold my breath, wondering if all of these moves are nothing more than the fashion industry paying lip service to the rising movement against the narrow representation of beauty produced in glossy pages, runways, and red carpets. Will the storm that has been brewing lately clear with the winds of complacency, allowing designers and fashion editors to slip back into doing what they know best: creating looks and styles meant for one percent of the population creating an elitist standard the rest of us struggle — but always fail — to live up to?

But then I realized ultimately, it is in our control as to what happens next. In fact, it has always been in our control. Just like any other industry, the fashion industry manufacturers what they can sell, whether it’s designer clothing or fashion bibles like Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Glamour. If we don’t buy it, they won’t sell it. Sure it might take a while for it to sink in, but ultimately, if they think they can sell more of their products by doing something different, then that’s what they’ll do. It’s not about being socially conscious, it’s about business. Just like Mark Fast realized he could sell even more clothing if he made it to fit real women with real curves, the fashion magazines might just be realizing they could sell even more magazines by featuring pictures of women that look like the rest of us, if that’s indeed what we really want. And to be honest, I think it’s taken us a long time to figure out that we really do want to see images of women like us.

For so long, we have been convinced that the “ideal” splayed out before us was one that we had to live up to. We didn’t consider an alternative — that we could possibly already be beautiful even though we looked nothing like what we saw before us, that we could be beautiful with protruding stomachs, cellulite, and stretch marks, that we could be beautiful with streaks of gray in our hair and wrinkles on our face. And yet, that IS the alternative. Every one of us has the right to feel beautiful and we shouldn’t have to kill ourselves through starvation or go broke buying beauty products to achieve that feeling. Bit by bit, we are waking up to the idea that beauty doesn’t have to be a size 2. It doesn’t have to be collar bones jutting out of the skin. It doesn’t have to be be achieved by photo editing tools that wipe away “flaws” to reveal a “perfect” image. By coming to this realization, and then demanding a new standard by putting our beauty-consumer dollars into the products that reflect that standard is sure to bring about the change we now so strongly desire, especially after having a little taste of what can be.

In the past, this doctored image of Filippa Hamilton, making her look even more emaciated than what has been the industry standard would have gone relatively unnoticed as far as ads go, except for the collective sigh at the newest standard of thinness we were supposed to live up to. But instead, there has been a huge backlash, and Ralph Lauren who has yet to apologize for the grotesque alteration, does admit it is a distorted image that does not reflect the integrity of the brand. Ok, so no culpability here, but if you read between the lines, I think they realize this something they can’t get away with anymore.

As I wrote in the post Giving Glamour Another Chance after they announced their commitment to body diversity, I have renewed my subscription to show my support and wrote them a letter saying so. And I will put my money where I see others making similar commitments, and ultimately it is our money that may speak louder than words when it comes to changing the tides.

What do you think? Is the tide actually turning?

Maintaining Your Mane

Do you brace yourself at every trim?  Do you think of your long hair as one of your top five most attractive features?  Do you define yourself in part by your long hair?  Do you take good care of it?

Long hair has been a sign of femininity, beauty, and good character for centuries.  Not all that long ago, it was a defining feature of a woman.  Today we have far more freedom in regards to haircuts and hairstyles, but many of us still love the length of the old-fashioned days.

If you’re a long haired vixen, you know how challenging it can be to maintain your mane.  When women in the old days turned down dates claiming that they were “washing their hair”, it was because it was possible to be occupied with the task all night!  In many cases, they were actually washing their hair.  Granted, plumbing wasn’t the regulated convenience that it is today, but caring for long hair continues to be time consuming.

There are a few tricks that can make it easier to keep long hair healthy and radiant.  A few changes in hair habit can make care less daunting.  Grab your brush, snap a hair tie around your wrist, and prepare to give love to your hair!

Remember how the prissy girl in the movies always brushed her hair for a hundred, five hundred, or other ridiculous-hundred strokes?  Believe it or not—it’s not a terrible idea.  Brushing your hair for a larger number of repetitions spreads essential oils from your scalp to your ends.  Aside from your scalp appearing less oily, the proteins are then spread throughout your hair, strengthening the strands.  (*Note:  Beware of the round brush!  I once had a friend jokingly roll my hair up in a round brush, and it subsequently had to be cut out.  Just be careful!*) In addition, an equal distribution of oil gives hair that sought after shine.

The thought of spreading oil around your head might make you want to start lathering up the shampoo right now, but don’t do it!  Washing long hair every other day is the maximum amount of washings long hair can take and still be healthy.  Over-washing causes dryness and split ends.  Shampoo was designed primarily for the scalp.  It robs hair of body and the aforementioned essential oils.  Conditioner was designed for more universal, all over application (with particular attention paid to the ends).

If you’re already sporting that over washed lackluster look, there’s still hope.  Infusium 23 offers a cheap, effective solution to damaged hair.  Their (repair)ologie line makes a noticeable impact on brittle, unhealthy locks.  The bottle boasts that the product “fortifies the hair cuticle to alleviate breakage and split ends”, and the product delivers!  After a few washings, the texture of your hair will become soft and smooth.  And you can find it as near as the local CVS or Walgreens, or you can order it online at Amazon.com.

There are a few things to keep in mind about products.  Don’t go crazy with just one!  Hair responds best to two or three shampoo/conditioner combos being alternated.  This discourages product build up.  Remember to wash all product out completely.  And though hot showers are ultra relaxing, after the conditioner has gone the way of the drain, give your tresses a final cold water rinse.  Cold water rinsing closes the scales of the hair.  Similarly, cold water helps to close skin pores.  Closed scales make the hair more likely to have that supermodel sheen.  You know the one—where it’s so shiny it’s practically glowing.

Once you’re out of the shower, take heed of the hair dryer!  After you have pampered your locks, why force them to endure a scorching windstorm?  Excess heat equals damage, dryness, and split ends.  If you must use the blow-dryer, give your hair a few minutes to dry on its own first, then use a dryer with an ionizer. The ionizing feature adds shine and reduces flyaways and frizz.  Another dryer asset is a “warm” or “cool” setting.

The curling iron can fry your head like an egg on a frying pan if you’re not careful.  Did you know that L’Oréal has a line of products specially created to combat the effects of the curling iron?  Their Loreal Heat Control Heat Shield Ironing Mist
not only helps retain curl, but it makes those curls shiny and enduring.  The serum leaves the crispy mess that is usually left behind protected and beautiful.

If you color your long locks, you already know it’s not easy to achieve even coloring.  In between coloring, color glazes and color conditioners can help bring back vibrance.  I use Graham Webb Color Conditioner, and it has been a Godsend.  My roots grow out fast, and I’d be touching up every other week if it wasn’t for this product.  After I use it, I get compliments on my color all day the next day.  Red hair is especially hard to maintain anyway.  Webb has all the colors covered and even has different intensities of color.  Depending on my mood, I use sunfire red or ruby red to create a more natural or dramatic look.

If you do color your hair, don’t forget to match your eyebrow pencil to your hair color!  The mismatched look is a dead giveaway that you color your hair, and there’s no excuse when eyebrow pencils can be purchased for $1 nowadays.  You never want to go lighter than the hair on your head.  It looks bizarre.  Trust me.  Match those eyebrows for a natural look.

It is just as possible to keep long hair as healthy and brilliant as short hair!  Just show your hair some love—and you’ll love the results.  I promise!

My Body Is Like a Prius

No, I haven’t figured out the secret to making my body more “fuel” efficient with the same amount of fuel. I am speaking more of aesthetics.

I am a car person and I notice cars — all cars. I can tell you the make and models of most popular cars on the road (except for the ones that are just arbitrary letters and numbers — those throw me off). I don’t know (or care) much about the engines, except to note how fuel efficient (or not) a particular car is. But I do notice the lines,  the details, the trends in design.

When the Prius came out, it was an entirely new look (and still is). I thought it was one of the ugliest cars I had ever seen. It reminded me of  the concept vehicles you see at auto shows, but that never actually make it to market. I appreciated its standing as the most fuel efficient car on the road, but I just couldn’t get over the looks. I would never be able to drive one of those things. Especially after they redesigned it to its current and even more modern look.

Fast forward to present day, and if I could pick any car to drive, it would be the Prius. Yes, I have become more aware of my impact on the environment and would like to minimize that impact as much as possible. But I can honestly say I love the look of the Prius. I guess you could say it has grown on me. The first time I saw it, it was such a departure from the norm, it was hard for me to appreciate it. But now, at least where I live, the Prius IS the norm. They are everywhere. Consequently, perhaps through the simple processes of desensitization and acclimation, my standard of what a beautiful car is has changed.

So  how does this relate to my body? Well, there was a time when I would stand in front of the mirror naked, feeling completely repulsed by what I saw. There was a vast disconnect between the images that led to what I believed were ideal — images that are hard to avoid — and what I saw in my reflection. I justified this mindset by arguing that I wasn’t striving for Hollywood thin. I just wanted to look fit and healthy — like the women on cover after cover of Fitness, Shape, and Self magazines, all of which I subscribed to. Everywhere I looked, I saw images of what I should look like, or at least what I am supposed to WANT to look like, and every time I looked in the mirror, it was like looking at the Prius for the first time. It wasn’t what I was used to seeing in terms of everything I saw around me, and I didn’t like it.

Finally realizing how unhealthy this mindset was, I went about the process of desensitizing myself, much in the way I became naturally desensitized by my increased exposure to the Prius. The more I saw the Prius, the more I liked it. So, I thought, why not force myself to stand in front of the mirror, without sucking in my stomach, without looking for the most flattering pose. Just stand in front of the mirror and see me. Just me. Without comparing that image to anything else. And suddenly I realized that not only was nothing wrong with what I saw in the mirror. To the contrary, what I saw was a remarkable, beautiful thing. I removed my preconceived ideas from what I saw, and when I observed each part of my body — my protruding belly, my “saddle-bag” thighs, my puffy knees — I realized they are just that. They are not better or worse than another woman’s body. They are just different. Just like the Prius was different. My body’s beauty comes from its uniqueness.  And everywhere I look now, I see that beauty in other women. When I go to the gym, I certainly see women with perfect bodies (though I’d be willing to bet they don’t see them that way), but I also see women of all shapes and sizes who don’t fit the standard idea of beauty, but are beautiful nonetheless. So let’s all become a Prius, and change what it means to be beautiful.

L.A. – The Culture of Cruelty

It’s not a big newsflash: L.A. is a self absorbed culture that feeds on the insecurities of star-gazed performers who base their entire self worth on the opinions of others. But at what point does vanity cross over into cruelty? In L.A. they seem to be one in the same, since vanity is derived from insecurities that are played out in the degradation of others.

Take auditions for example. Mia walks in, a tall, thin brunette with striking features. And yet, she is told she’s “not pretty enough”. It’s one thing to not be right for the part. And there would be no real harm in a casting director saying so to the one auditioning. But it seems the casting director, who from accounts are often overweight and unattractive (by Hollywood standards anyway) themselves, apparently sooth their own insecurities by being in a position of power that allows them to make others feel worthless. In what other profession can you openly discriminate against people for noses that are too big, breasts that are too small, legs that have too much cellulite, etc.? I understand that casting directors have a certain image they are trying to portray in filling key roles, but what right does that give them to play God in determining the worth of others based on physical attributes. And I only exaggerate slightly when I say they are playing God, because a few short words from a casting director to an insecure aspiring actor can lead to plastic surgery, starvation, and drug use including Clenbuterol, a drug used on horses to control asthma, that has also been found to contribute to weight loss in humans — but at what cost? Not to mention the alcohol and recreational drug use often used to numb the constant feelings of rejection and self loathing they face.

Meanwhile, the rest of us sit back and enjoy the results brought on by casting directors in the form of the idealistic beautiful people that end up gracing the silver screen. We don’t think much of the people that weren’t cast in the film. The people that were rejected because they might have a mole in the wrong place on their face, or their breasts sag too much. We just go to see the Brad Pitts and the Angelina Jolie’s who herself seems to have recently succumbed to the Hollywood Thin Machine. And if we aren’t buying the movie tickets, we sure are picking up the tabloids, feeling relief and disgust at the pictures of this star and that with cellulite. (Egad!) If you do a search on Google for ‘celebrity cellulite’, you will get 150,000 results. One site devotes an entire section to celebrity cellulite. While I think the intent is to make us all realize that everyone, even those we think of as perfect has “flaws”, I think the intent backfires and instead sends the message that since these women, who at a size 2 have cellulite, what hope is there for the rest of us. We love finding the imperfections in our beloved celebrities because it helps us feel better about ourselves in the same way that the casting directors boost their egos through insults.

Periodically, a celebrity lashes out as Jennifer Love Hewitt did last year after pictures of her romping on the beach in a bikini revealed that she had grown out of her 16 year old body and acquired some cellulite. Nevermind that she was still a size 2. All that mattered to the papparazzi was to reveal her “flaws”. When criticism of her body was showing up in the media and in blogs she responded on her web site: “I’ve sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women’s bodies are constantly scrutinized. To set the record straight, I’m not upset for me, but for all of the girls out there that are struggling with their body image.”

And the cruelty doesn’t stop at the studio gates. It’s so ingrained in the culture that even homeless people expect perfection from women. While Sarah dined at a street-side cafe, a drunk homeless man began harassing customers, trying to get someone to buy him alcohol at a nearby liquor store (from which presumably he’d been banned). When he got to Sarah, and she politely declined to “help”, he began his verbal assualt: “You FAT FUCK. You FAT FUCKING PIG! I would rather be ME than you, you fat pig!” And so it went for about 30 seconds, though to Sarah it felt like an eternity. To add insult to injury, all those standing around gaping at the scene, maintained silence and feeling glad it was not them he was after. Sarah, who has cerebral palsy, has had numerous surgeries, takes medications around the clock, some of which contribute to weight gain, and has been virtually immobile for much of the last few years, does struggle with her weight, for obvious and understandable reasons. But to her, the reason no one stepped in to stop this homeless man’s verbal assault is because he was in fact right (to all those around). To everyone standing there, the worst thing in the world is to be fat, and even being drunk and homeless was a better lot in life than that of Sarah.

So where does it all stop? When do we as a culture, finally draw the line and say “enough is enough” with the emotional torture in LA that we encourage, if not actively, then at least passively by not DIScouraging it? It’s great when a celebrity — like Jennifer Love Hewitt — steps out here and there to criticize the media, but one size 2 actress with a little cellulite speaking out every now and then is like trying to tear down the Berlin wall with a chisel. We as a society need to reject what has become a standard — if not for the skeletons that walk the red carpet, then for the rest of us in taking back the idea of real beauty and not defining it by jutting collar bones or the number of ribs you can see.