Becoming Barbie — In Just 37 Seconds

Laura Willard posted a great video on Upworthy that has since gone viral, entitled See Why We Have An Absolutely Ridiculous Standard Of Beauty In Just 37 Seconds…

*video clip, created by GlobalDemocracy.com

This is the best example I’ve seen of the destructive power of the endless “Barbie-izing” of women and girls.

Both sexes get an exaggerated and unrealistic vision of what women look like. Who can meet these expectations? This sets us up for failure and disappointment in many areas. In relationship, men may look less favorably at their real options because they have been conditioned to want the fake ones — or at least to think that the illusion actually exists.  Many women damn themselves when they look in the mirror, assuming something must be wrong with them if they can’t match up to an ideal that even the model herself does not approach.

In one example of cosmetic commercials on TV, Diane Keaton, a woman in her sixties, is so blown out and airbrushed, she hasn’t got a line on her face.  No make-up is going to do that for any woman of 66, nor should it.  She is beautiful just as she is. Ms. Keaton should be celebrated for her real looks.

By selling this bill of goods and glamourizing the impossible, we make the possible seem less-than, drab, wrong and not good enough.

Since we can now digitize and airbrush live images, not just magazine photos, this practice has become so pervasive, we are brainwashed into assuming what is false is real. Therefore, when we see something real, we are prone to criticize it because it doesn’t meet these false standards of beauty.

Would we be able to accept people who are not airbrushed?  In time, perhaps, but only if we see and reward enough real images to the point where the phony ones look like the plastic they are.

Since today is Hallowe’en, perhaps it is fitting that we are looking at a woman wearing an airbrushed mask.  Now what do we do about the other 364 days of the year?

Originally published at Anita Finlay’s Blog and EPIC TIMES.  Reposted with permission of the author.

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