Picture perfect
> How female body image became the topic of the summer
I Thas been a big week for Pink - – not only did the artist take home the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2017 MTV VMAs, but she has also hit the headlines for her powerful acceptance speech.
Clutching her new statuette in one hand, the singer told the starstudded audience a story about her six-year-old daughter Willow. It started like this: “Recently, I was driving my daughter to school and she said to me, out of the blue, ‘Mama?’ I said, ‘Yes, baby?’ She said, ‘I’m the ugliest girl I know.’”
Needless to say, Pink wasn’t going to let that kind of talk slide, so she went on to recount how she gave her daughter a life lesson in self-love, via a rockstar-themed PowerPoint presentation and a heart-to-heart. The crux of her story was this: “So, baby girl. We don’t change. We take the gravel and the shell and we make a pearl. And we help other people to change so they can see more kinds of beauty.” Then she thanked everybody in the arena for inspiring her, told her daughter (who was in the audience) that she was beautiful, and left the stage to wild applause.
Pink isn’t the only famous figure who has drawn attention recently to the relationships young girls have with their image. Earlier this month, best-selling author Zadie Smith used an appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to describe how she had recently introduced a 15-minute mirror time limit in her home after noticing that her own seven-yearold daughter Kit was spending a lot of time focusing on her looks. “I explained it to her in these terms: you are wasting time, your brother is not going to waste any time doing this,” said Smith.
The importance of positive body image is increasingly becoming a hot topic of conversation, partly due to revelations from famous figures like Pink and Smith. And it isn’t just a subject that affects young girls, as model Chrissy Teigen proved this month when she spoke about her own self-image challenges during an appearance at the Beautycon Festival in LA. According to Hello Giggles, Teigen told the audience: “My old a** will go on social media, and I will look at the Photoshopping, Facetuning, and the apps – and everything that goes into creating what is now a hit Instagram photo – and I feel insanely inadequate.” Her relatable admission led to an outpouring of public support, with many praising her honesty.
Given the popularity of social media, it is unlikely that we will see a decline in the quest for pictureperfect beauty anytime soon. But thanks to a handful of famous women, the conversation about the importance of cultivating positive body image and self-esteem is getting louder. – AFP Relaxnews