Anyway, I came across this video via Skulls and Butterflies this morning and, along with the encouragement from the comment of loveliness from Lady Wordsmith on my previous post, I decided it was time for some ponderings.
Firstly, I want to talk about the sheer power of spoken-word poetry. It's not really a thing you hear much about over here in the UK. But in the US, Spoken Word is massive. Just YouTube 'spoken word' or 'bowery poetry club' or 'poetry slam' and you gets hundreds of people sharing bits of their life through poetry. I don't know about anyone else, but I think of poetry as one of the most intimate forms of writing. You can get a whole lot of, well, anything, in a poem. Poetry has, for centuries, been used as a form of self-expression. And Spoken Word takes that concept, that idea of opening up a little piece of your soul, and puts it into a performance. These people are incredible. To be able to stand up, to talk about the issues they do, freely, without judgement, and open a little bit of their hearts and minds to an audience is just incredible. Heck, I wish it'd catch on over here (Exeter University Spoken Word Society, anyone?). But anyway, back to the video.
Pretty. It's what all girls want, really, isn't it? I know that when I was a little girl, I would have given an arm to look like any one of these:
Obviously now I understand the impossibility of that dream. But at the time? I saw perfect hair, big doe eyes, little nose, straight teeth, tiny frame, long flowing dress. The closest I ever got was when I was about seven, and I had hair down to my waist and still hadn't really grown into my eyes. And I admit, it still wasn't very close.
Like most teenagers, I went through the irritation that is braces. As it turned out, the orthodontist took us for a bit of a ride and took them off too early, so I still don't have the perfectly straight teeth everyone thought I would end up with. But that hasn't held me back too much. But some women go to so much more effort to look how they think they should. Botox. Liposuction. Facelift. Implants. All manner of appearance-changing procedures designed to make women feel better about themselves. And sometimes, it does. Sometimes, surgery is that confidence-boosting step that a woman needs in her life. Sometimes, it's not. The thing is, no one can ever be completely satisfied with how they look. I defy anyone on this world, with or without surgery, to say that they would not change one thing about themselves if they were given the chance. Everyone has things they don't like. And the mediatisation of "correctional" surgery means that people feel like they should change.
The thing is, our individual "imperfections" are what make us unique. They're what make us real. Personally, I don't ever want perfect, because that means that I'd have to spend the rest of my life trying to live up to it. I'd much rather have real. Because I think real is more than pretty.
People do crazy things to feel better about themselves every day. And Cosmetic Surgery is a much nicer phrase than Self Mutilation.
Poetry is pretty big on my campus; we have poetry open mic nights as well as impromptu stuff. Poetry isn't my personal favorite, but it's all freedom of expression I suppose!
ReplyDeleteI went through the braces circus too, and while I'd like to say my teeth are perfect, too many years of not wearing my retainer ruined that...but you're right, too many articles and modern media sources tell women that we should look a certain way, forcing many into a dangerous routine. I especially see this with weight--the average American model is a size 0-2 now, but Marilyn Monroe wore a size 16 at one point in her career (and was considered the greatest beauty of the time).
The length of this comment got away from me a bit, but I really enjoyed this post :)And thank you for the bit at the beginning (as well as following me now)! Good luck with your exams!