...the proliferation and, in fact, glorification of truly ugly people these days? I'm not talking about physical beauty. Some of the ugliest people I know are physically the most beautiful. I'm talking about ugliness of the soul.
I have the television on today for background noise and, because there is absolutely nothing else on, I've had it on the Oxygen channel. After surviving the hell that is an America's Next Top Model marathon, following it up with the show Pretty Wicked has been horrific. Here are all of these lovely young women with absolutely the ugliest souls, personalities and intellects I have ever encountered in my life. I don't even know these people and I am ashamed for them.
Ashamed.
Granted, our society is geared toward the physically attractive. We are pummeled with commercials for weight loss products, cosmetics, clothes and hair care crap from morning to night. Save for the Dove real beauty campaign (which convinced me to spend my money on their products alone) all of the standards our young girls are exposed to for beauty are cookie cutter lookalikes. Women worked way too hard and suffered for way too long to gain equality for the newer generations of women to squander that away on the incessant quest for physical beauty.
I spearheaded a conversation several years ago at a restaurant I worked at. There were probably ten young women there of various ages and I tried to make them all see that a woman doesn't need to be a size two to be gorgeous--or a blonde, or have designer clothes yada yada yada. Even now, it amazes me how little impact my words had. The very next day, they were all dieting again, all caught up in how they looked as opposed to how they felt, what they thought about or how well they worked. In my opinion, it's the fault of "reality" television in a way because that type of programming has taken that type of superficiality and glamorized it to such a degree that that's all our young women think about.
It's very sad.
Beauty is reflected most honestly within a person's soul. Now excuse me while I go touch up my mascara.
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