I just saw this wonderful video about beauty and society’s ridiculous ideas of perfection. It is similar to Dove’s video in that it is also used as an advertising campaign, but the message isn’t weakened. In this case It doesn’t directly address women, but those who are disabled or afflicted by crippling disease.
Even though it doesn’t explicitly address women, it is on the concept of beauty. It takes the socially accepted norms of disfigured and places the images in a setting where one expects classic images of perfect beauty. It’s undeniable that these people are beautiful, but just because they look different from the social ideal, they have to feel insecure? They have to wonder, “how will people see me? How can I make a good first impression when I look like this?” These kinds of insecurities are found in girls and felt just as clearly because of how unrealistic modern concepts of perfection are. Some of you might think that everyone has to deal with these kinds of insecurities, but the people with these disabilities, and the young girls who hate their bodies, feel the uncertainty on a whole different scale. It causes them pain, so much so it can lead to suicide or eating disorders.
This video does a really nice job of taking the concept of beauty and just bludgeoning it, as though with a metal bat. Of course it isn’t enough to actually destroy the current paradigm, but it makes a dent. It definitely helped the people who took part in the campaign; one of the women does say “It’s special to see yourself like this, when you usually can’t look at yourself in the mirror.”