Can
Beauty be Honest?
As
you are walking down the street something, actually to be more specific,
someone beautiful catches your eye. You can’t move your gaze off them as you
are examining their physically attractive attributes. In an instant they
viciously began mugging a nearby elderly man for money. All of the strong
feelings of attraction you recently acquired toward them were crushed
immediately after they committed this evil act. You realize that despite
possessing beautiful qualities on the outside they can be a wretched person on
the inside. If beauty is solely based off of sight then can beauty truly be
honest? The lesson learned from this scenario can connect with Cameron Russell’s,
an American fashion model, stance on beauty. Russell’s views on beauty’s
honesty were portrayed by her TED Talk lecture in which she explains how beauty
is not honest, but constructed and fake. I agree with Russell’s perspectives on
beauty because humans have a deceiving nature and will go to the extreme in
order to recreate themselves into something they are not.
The quintessence of beauty is one having a combination of
qualities which all please the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. Cameron
Russell teases the audience of her TED Talk moments after walking onto stage
and puts on casual clothes over her black dress. Russell did this to show that
even though she changed her superficial appearance nothing else about her
changed aside from her clothing. After putting on more clothing Russell argues her
opinions on beauty by stating, “Image is powerful, but also image
is superficial. I just totally
transformed what you thought of me in six seconds” (Russell). She
is still the same person, but she could be viewed as less appealing to the eye
due to her covering up her legs and chest. Both those body parts are what makes
one attractive in the eyes of society and the media.
Anyone
can change the way they look in this day and age with the use of Adobe
Photoshop to edit photographs of themselves to improve their outward appearance.
Makeup can be applied to one’s skin order to clear up blemishes and add colors
to make ones skin look more vibrant and appealing. Another modern method in
order to change ones appearance to look more beautiful is surgery. Surgeries such
as plastic surgery and Botox injections are preformed to permanently change one’s
body to their own liking when they really don’t need any change at all. My
friend Mike who had a perfectly normal nose got a nose job to change his nose
permanently simply because he had the cash for the surgery. Anyone can undergo
a surgery to look different and possibly more “beautiful” on the inside, but
they could still be an ugly person on the inside no matter what they do to
change themselves.
Beauty should not be based solely off of sight
since visuals can be deceiving. Visuals can deceive because they do not show
the inner motives of others Furthermore, since visuals can be deceiving, how
can an individual’s beauty be honest if they are basing what their own beauty’s
worth is by visual appearances? I believe that beauty is not only based off of
sight alone, but what consists of one’s true beauty is what positive qualities
someone has. People have to prove the beautiful qualities they have such as being
kind hearted, portraying to others a positive point of view on life and giving
off an uplifting attitude.
Instead of stressing about trying to please
others we should please ourselves and accept the bodies we have. The way we
look naturally is the way we should always appear. Stressing about our beauty
and make us insecure and that is an issue that could lead to depression. Cameron
Russell interprets this to her audience by saying, “…the thing that
we never say on camera, that I have
never said on camera, is, I am
insecure. And I'm insecure because I have to think about what I look like
every day. And if you ever
are wondering, if I have
thinner thighs and shinier hair, will I be happier? You just need to meet a
group of models, because they
have the thinnest thighs and the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes, and they're the
most physically insecure women probably on the planet” (Russell). Apparently,
even the most self-proclaimed beautiful people, models, are insecure because
they always have to be pleasing others by their looks. If they relaxed and had
a day to not care about what they looked like they would have less stress and
could focus on improving other positive qualities they have instead of just
their bodies.
Cameron Russell ends
her TED talk lecture with, “If there's a takeaway to this talk, I hope it's
that we all feel more
comfortable acknowledging the power of image in our perceived successes and our perceived
failures” (Russell). I believe that Russell means through this statement that
our appearance doesn't affect our image, our beauty and every other quality we
possess. We can deceive others easily through appearances but if we are trying
to be someone we are not we are only living a lie. Eventually our true personality is revealed
in the end and we are shown for who we truly are. No matter how much we try to
be someone who we aren't our true identity shines through even if we don’t want
our actual identify shown. Therefore, we should try to be the best person we
can be and not try to pull a facade in order to make ourselves look more
appealing to others. In the end, our beauty is shown through how we see
ourselves and if we do not see ourselves as beautiful then we are trying too
hard. No one should ever try to be someone they are not since their beauty is
not honest but a fake beauty which is meaningless.
