Impact

BEAUTIFUL SELF

Beauty, like most everything else, has its yin and yang. It’s both a blessing and a curse. It’s light side lifts you and its dark side drags you down. This dichotomy is at the core of self-esteem issues faced by us all. How we define beauty, for ourselves, as individuals, is often heavily influenced by how our peers and societies define it. Within each culture, we marvel at the wonderful examples of beauty, while we know those who don’t fit those molds often suffer. And then there are those who wish, more than anything, that they belonged to a different culture -- women of color who bleach their skin white and white women who tan their skin dark. But under the cosmetic manipulations, how we feel about ourselves determines our ultimate success.

Video: Courtesy of Dark Girls

"Dark Girls," a documentary that explores self-esteem issues faced by black women throughout the world, is a collection of personal stories that will widen your eyes. It airs today (June 23, 2013) on OWN. Director, Bill Duke, digs deep to find out where dark-skinned women and girls get their ideas about what makes them pretty, or not. Of course, much of it comes from what other people say about them, but somewhat more surprisingly, much comes from their own constructed standards.

Film Trailer: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

In a somewhat similar vein, but through a different lens, “The Black List,” a documentary film and book (Atria, 2008) by photographer/filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Elvis Mitchell, portrays prominent African Americans as they share their insights and stories about how their inner self portraits formed during their life-journeys through a challenging white landscape. In the film, Toni Morrison, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Vernon Jordan, Chris Rock, Richard D. Parsons, among others, are powerful examples of people who have triumphed over inner and outer struggles of self esteem, rising up above the dark din of ugly societal voices, to find their own voices, strong and beautiful.

Book: “The Black List: Intimate Portraits of Black America (Volume One)” by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

And in a completely different vein, Spoleto, a Brazilian fast food chain, recently ran a promotional tie-in to International Women’s Day that confronted women head on, challenging their self esteem. They asked each female customer who approached their counters, “Are you beautiful?” If the answer was “yes” they got a free meal. Shocking? Yes. Rude? Perhaps. Disrespectful? Hmmn. Not so fast...

Spoleto cashiers gave each woman a hand mirror as they waited to hear the answer. If a woman can admit her own beauty, regardless of what she looks like to herself or to others who gaze upon her, that is surely one testimony to her self-worth. When we watch the video (below) it is quite wonderful to watch the women’s faces as they considered themselves, first unsure and then, as each began to feel her own inner goddess swell up from her core to deliver the affirmation: “Yes. I am beautiful.”

Video: Courtesy of Artplan

Idealized versions of beauty, as defined by a narrow set of tastemakers, has been virtually all people have ever seen as role models. Magazines, movies, and tv paint the picture of what beautiful people are supposed to look like, and many billions of dollars are made by selling them the cosmetics, clothing, drugs, equipment, and a slew of other products and services that promise to help people achieve those “ideals.” Again, to both the benefit and detriment of our bodies, minds, and souls.

Recently, there has been a bit of a push back. “Real” people are being touted as beautiful. And they are being asked to be proud of their own individual brands of beauty. It’s a joy to watch these young women come to their own conclusion in the video by first-time filmmaker, Jossyl Bacalla. (below)

Youtube Video: Jossyl Bacalla

Dove, Procter & Gamble’s brand of skincare and beauty products, asks us to “Imagine a World Where Beauty is a Source of Confidence, Not Anxiety,” as part of their campaign for “Real Beauty,” which began in 2004 and continues today. They conducted a study which found that only 2% of women around the world would describe themselves as beautiful. The brand’s mission evolved into a “Movement for Self-Esteem.”

Widening the definition of beauty is one of the keys. And, contrary to every other cosmetics or fashion brand in existence, Dove began to feature women in their ads who were not only not professional models, but who came bearing wrinkles, spots, bumps, and curves. Throughout the years, the brand has launched many initiatives in education and philanthropy, in an effort to address the self-esteem crises that plague women.

Their latest effort, “Real Beauty Sketches,” is a fascinating documentary in which they ask women to describe their own physical appearance to a forensic sketch artist who sits behind a curtain as he draws their faces solely based on the information they provide. Next, the women are asked to describe each other while the artists sketches based on their different perspectives. When the sketches are compared, those based on self-descriptions always looked “worse” than those based on the descriptions of other. We tend to see ourselves as being more unattractive than other see us. We are actually more beautiful than we think.

Video: Courtesy of Procter & Gamble

Even though Joe Cocker grabs our hearts every time we hear him sing this, Imagine how good it might be to sing this song to yourself and mean it. Check out this amazing version of Cocker singing with Patti LaBelle, with Billy Preston on piano.