The campaign for real beauty

Isn't it IRONIC that Dove, a cosmetic-based corporation, should start a Campaign for Real Beauty? We've all seen the ads. They've been on air for a while now.

Defining Beauty
Many a time I've found myself asking whoever created these "guidelines" for beauty. Who said that having a 26inch waist was ideal, or the oval-shaped face was most desired by women. When did the perfect profile mean a straight nose, perfect chin, no double-chin, etc etc. Can you define beauty in your own words? Shouldn't beauty, literally, be in the eyes of the beholder? If you argue that that statement still holds true, why do we have women being categorized into "cute", "hot", "gorgeous", "sweet, but not sexy", "ugly", "unattractive"? Or even men being rated as "geeky", "hot", "hunk-ish"? Shouldn't you be deciding who looks a particular way, and not using the rules set down by commercials, products, magazines, music divas and peers to make a conclusion? But why draw a conclusion on someone's outward appearance? If we were all born blind, would it matter? Would we still go to a website and rate women?

On the Picture
Look at the picture. Do half of the women in the world look like this? Let's get real. A trip down to the nudie beach can be quite eye-opening if you think women look like this most of the time. But yes, according to the numerous campaigns, these women are a step-down from the runway models. Most real women wouldn't pose in underwear for a beauty campaign. BEfore I forget, courtesy for this picture goes to Dove's website, who's image caption was img_curvy_girls (which I believe says image of curvy girls). So now curvy is the new "in"? What about a bunch of those who look, well, not curvy?

Beauty and Race
If beauty can be defined, so can race. As I mentioned above, if we were born blind, beauty would hold no importance to us. The same way, if we were born colour-blind, no one would give jack about a person's race (to a large extent). Racism arises from the discrimination against one's race. Discrimination against one's "beauty" or appearance would be called... ? We don't have a word for it, of course. Racism is rebelled against in most places around the world. They say it cannot be tolerated. They say the person experiencing such a behavior becomes upset and is effected mentally and emotionally. Since God knows when, race has been an underlying cause for most of the wars fought and has sadly, taken many lives. But is that statistic as alarming as people dying from anorexia? Does a comment, "Who'd go out with YOU?" take an emotional toll as a similar moderate racist comment? So I say they're similar. One is already being addressed all over the globe by caring individuals who live by example. The other is being done by the forerunners of beauty promotion.

Re-defining Beauty
Is it not time to embrace people for who they are, for the ideals they stand by and move on from this superficial world we've created? After all, they are like us. They grumble to go to work so early in the morning, they go to schools, they come back home, eat dinner and watch TV like the rest of us. But the only difference between them and the others is that they were born in such a way and which, is beyond their control. They were not born with the "B gene", the beauty gene. So they resorted to the options offered by society, and tried to fit in with the people they saw on a flat-screen. They still weren't satisfied. So once again, they fell at the merciful hands of cosmetics, surgery, etc. A couple people out of a million were satisfied by the end of it all. They WERE the perfect homosapiens, with el natural looking looks that fooled others. But what they didn't realize that in the process of fooling the world, they were fooling themselves. The world loved them for who they were not. The world wanted a Marilyn Monroe, a Jackie Kennedy, a Paris Hilton, a Salma Hayek, a Beyonce. The not-so-perfect people conformed to become like one of those women, in the process losing any originality that would have come with age. Were they happy? That is a matter of personal consciousness. Were the majority happy? No. Was the world happy to learn about the truth at some point in time? Definitely not. The world called them liars. Not Monroe or Hilton. The world put on a halo and everyone became angels, prophesizing real beauty. They campaigned for real beauty in the day. But they were back to their true, shallow selves by night. It took too much energy to change the world. It was no point starting with themselves, when the world would not follow. After all, what can a small group of people believing in re-defining beauty do to bring change? The world would see it as a passing phase.

Read Isabella Mori's Carnival of Eating Disorders. It's truely enlightening with references to many more people's thoughts.