Reflection+p.2

American Beauty
Beauty is highly stressed in American culture. As people walk down the streets, go on the internet, turn on the TV, there is no way to avoid the pressures to be beautiful. America promotes a form of beauty that is not unique and nearly impossible to achieve. The study called "A Girl Like Me" demonstrated that society has brainwashed our culture to thinking there is only one form of beautiful. The African American girl subconsciously learned, through television and advertisements, that white girls are more beautiful. She then choses the white doll over the one with the same skin color as her. American society and the media has caused us to ignore our unique beauties and critique our imperfections.

Our culture pressures Americans, young girls especially, to criticize their natural beauty in order to conform to the pictures in the magazines. By watching shows like //America's Next Top Model,// viewers are shown that beauty will help a person to succeed. Just like the African American girl in //The Bluest Eye//, people tend to believe that if they looked like the models broadcasted on TV, they would be happier. This leads people to sacrifice their identity in order to achieve an unrealistic goal. Pecola dreams of having blue eyes like white girls in order to receive love from her family. She criticizes her African American looks and dreams of looking like the white girls in her class. The Youtube video demonstrates American girls falling into the media's trap and forcing them to be self-critical. Just like Sophia Loren wrote, beauty is on the inside. "Beauty is not something physical," but rather how a person feels inside. If a person has a warm soul, their inner beauty will reflect on the outside. If someone is beautiful on the inside, he or she can share this happiness and inner strength, which is a beautiful thing. Before turning to self-criticism, we must first ask "Is there any truth to this beauty?" Can we adjust our thinking in order to focus on merely inner beauty? Are we trying to attain realistic standards? Back