Beauty
In The Eye Of The Beholder
Lola Kidney
It's
a funny thing. I was happily leafing through a magazine
on the same lines as Cosmo, you know, stuff for fairly young women who
like to think that they're modern. It's the kind of magazine that is doomed
to lie on a coffee table or in a dentists waiting room indefinitely.
Anyway, the article that caught my eye was about plastic surgery. Let's
stop and think about this...
How vain and self obsessed is this country getting, if a magazine targeted
at 25-35 year old women is telling its readers how to go about getting
a face lift?
Do we need to know the pitfalls of having our eyes tucked or our thighs
sucked, or whatever it is that they do? And don't we have better things
to spend our money on than £1000 make up
tattoos and cosmetic surgery that can cost up to ten times that amount?
More than anything, it made me feel sad. The message is, "Women!
Be strong and independent career women (but only if you can look young
and pretty too)".
Every feminist victory over stereotypes has led us back to this; a society
where the allegedly beautiful people are the ones we aspire to be. It
isn't even like plastic surgery is a one way ticket to the land of Never
Never, where people never grow up. At best, you'll get rid of your worry
lines for a few more years. Or if you keep at it,you'll look like Cher.
Well, I can think of people I'd rather resemble, and Shane MacGowan is
one of them.
Joan Rivers looks like a cat who has had its whiskers tied to its tail, and Scary Spice's boob job has left her looking like a deformed ethnic minority Barbie doll.
It's
not only the plastic population that these glossy magazines promote, it's
the joys of eating disorders, too. Calista Flockhart, the eyes on a stick,
hasn't got an eating disorder, apparently. Yeah, and my name is Slim Shady.
If Courtney Cox gets any thinner, we won't be able to see her
from sideways on. Even the once curvaceous Jennifer Aniston is becoming
like an ironing board with two peas on it. Without wanting to echo Popstar
Mylene's pompous rant about the media, it seems that all the positive
images of 'full bodied' women like Sophie Dahl are just ignored in favour
of looking like Skeletor.
It shouldn't really bother me, I'm never going to be a Hollywood star
or a pop star, but I am worried that our country is becoming so superficial.
We're turning into America without the cheap prices and health problems.
Tits and ass are no longer valuable commodities in Tinsel Town, now it's
all about ribcages and having legs like matchsticks. I think I'll stick
to my natural look, no plastic and size 14 clothes, and maybe I'll visit
all my friends in hospital when they are diagnosed with anorexia after
trying to emulate their favourite stars.
