In
writing this blog post I really wanted to dig deeper into the topic that
Morrison writes about in The Bluest Eye: beauty. Ever since I was little
I heard the words pretty and beautiful used, almost interchangeably, to
describe different women. While I do understand that sometimes these words are
used to describe men, more often than not they are directed towards women. When
I was a little girl my mom would always tell me I was, "beautiful inside
and out." As a kid I never really understood what this meant, to be honest
I thought she was just telling me I was pretty. So when I sat down to write this post I
decided I wanted to figure out just what these words meant, naturally I googled
it. The first result to show up was: https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKTZAsDVkzs
. After watching this video, I realized
that beautiful and pretty are not interchangeable. I found that to be pretty
most nearly means to look like the beauty standards set forth by society. However,
one of the women in the video said: "[Beauty] is something that comes from
the inside out, it's a combination of who I am and what I bring to the
table." This really made me consider what I believed to be the definition
of beauty. The next video I found was one in which blind people talked about
the meaning of beauty to them (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlcx_q8u_YI). This
video truly made me think of things from a different point of view. I started
to think, every girl in school doesn't like the same guy and vice versa. So
that means that "beauty [truly] is in the eye of the beholder." In
the video one of the men said that he believed beauty to be experiences. To me
this video was very powerful because it really illuminated the idea that beauty
is not just looks. After watching these videos I understand that although we
live in a society where being pretty is practically essential, when it really
comes down to it beauty is what's most important. Being pretty may make you the
'it girl' in high school, but without a kind heart the 'real' world will be a
cold, unforgiving place.
Some music videos I found relevant
to this topic:
Sierra by Maddie and Tae: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imgXC-rD52g
This song explores the fact that
being pretty can only get you so far in life.
Pretty Girl Rock by Keri Hilson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtXOVKNazYU
This video really idealizes the
meaning of pretty-"no question that this girl's a ten."
Chels, you blog post was really cool. You provided insight to commonly used words that I did not know before. And when readers get depressed when they realize they are almost finished reading your blog, they can tune in to the videos which extend your viewpoint and that is caring.
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