In her essay, Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self, Walker tells about how
she lost her eye and how it affected her confidence growing up. Before the accident, she placed a lot of
pride in being beautiful and afterwards she felt as though she had lost it all
and that she was constantly being judged.
She worries about the scar tissue on her eye. After having it removed, she worries about
the way her blind eye wanders. She
constantly places her appearance as her first concern, even after years and years
of success, and years and years of her worries never being proven correct.
A focus on beauty is everywhere in
society. It has always been a concern of
almost everyone’s. It’s rather
unfortunate that people constantly center on appearance over personality, and
even if they look to personalities they never truly disregard appearance. It isn’t necessarily a shallow attribute, not
in all situations, it has just become so generally accepted that no one
questions how attractiveness factors into people’s perceptions of each other.
A pressure to be beautiful surrounds
so much that we do in society. This
pressure is especially hard on women, though I refuse to entirely discount men
from the pressures of society because it certainly falls on them as well. However, since I have only experienced the burdens
of beauty for a woman, that’s all that I can personally speak for. One part of the media focuses on rejecting shallow
standards, but then the rest of it, unfortunately the majority, focuses on
every possible way to sell change. The
front page of almost any magazine advertises weight loss tips. Commercials bombard us with hair care, skin
care, make up, and other cosmetic products.
Teeth get whitened, legs get shaved, hair get colored, eyes get painted,
nails get manicured, and even after doing everything possible to conform to a standard
of beauty, models still get photoshopped.
With this kind of representation being forced daily over everyone, it makes
sense for Walker to be concerned about her appearance, though I find it rather
sad that even through success she lets a minor difference define her.
After becoming a successful author,
she is about to be featured in a magazine.
The night before, she has this thought: “Suddenly all I can think of is
whether I will get enough sleep the night before the photography session: If I
don't, my eye will be tired and wander, as blind eyes will.” She then debates even going through with the
photography, solely because she fears that her eye won’t be straight
enough. After looking up pictures of
Walker, I found it difficult to even tell which one of her eyes was the real
one and which one was the fake. We all
tend to exaggerate our faults. We dwell
on them quite often to an unhealthy extent.
In the end, she discusses a time at
which she feels beautiful. She is
comfortable with her slight deformity and she is content with herself. Though through her realization, I feel that
she still is focusing on her appearance.
She never mentions the idea that she is a brilliant, successful, or
worthy person. All she comes to peace
with is her appearance despite a fake eye.
Even with a “happy ending,” the pressures of beauty have obviously take
hold, even on a subconscious level. Despite
the attempted shift to a more uplifting message of the essay, I found it to
still be rather disappointing, or even shallow.
5 comments:
It's unfortunate that even the people who don't feel beautiful are being just as superficial as those who make people feel like they aren't beautiful. As you said at the end of your commentary, even when she "felt beautiful" it seemed to you that she was basing this feeling on physical attributes rather than her other good qualities. Not all of the blame for people being self conscious about their looks can be blamed on the media and the judgment of others; some of it can indeed be from low self esteem in the person themself. I think this is a big problem in high schools in particular as, girls especially like you said, try to all look alike. They are most likely self conscious about who they are and strive to be "beautiful" because they look like the other girls that are labeled as "beautiful". The pressures of conformity play a lot into this essay, from what I heard in your commentary.
Unfortunately conformity is a part of life in high school. We strive to be the same. If we don’t we are labeled as “nerd” or “geek” or “that one kid with ____”. As shallow as it is, no one can completely disregard appearances, even if it is only subconscious thinking. First impressions leave a lasting mark about what people will think of you and looks are often part of this assessment.
There's actually some study out there about how our emphasis on physical beauty is rooted in our biological recognition that beautiful offspring are less likely to be "defective"; more likely to survive. Of course, this is an outdated instinct and is very harmful nowadays when the "ugly" and the "fat" are seen as unworthy of companionship. This commentary also reminds me of some slam poetry I saw on Youtube. I think it was called "Pretty". It was from a woman who was ugly as a teenager so her parents "fixed her". It's worth a look.
Maya: It certainly is undeniable that shallow things do form the foundation of much of what goes on in high school, and while looks do influence first impressions, I wouldnt say that first impressions are all too important. Despite all the science that talks about what first impressions do, I've never found them to be much use at all. Maybe I'm just really bad at initial judgments, but a conversation at my lunch table today was basically how all of us, when we first met one of the other people that is now a close friend of ours, we didnt like them to begin with. Almost none of us made good first impressions on the other.
Mickey: I believe I've seen that somewhere before. I do really like slam poetry when it's good
This whole scenario reminds me of a ballet class. I spend the majority of the time judging my own appearance in the wall-length mirrors in the studio, and a significant portion watching everybody else. I remember when I was young and couldn't do certain steps, I would just try to conform with the older girls and copy their movements exactly. It's very sad when people get sucked up like that in real life, trying to change their appearance to match celebrities or others around them.
Post a Comment