NO COMPETITION
A new animated series provides a positive solution to nullifying a toxic cultural concept
Her trials and tribulations in being an Olympic and World Championship medallist have been portrayed in Lifetime Movies’ The Simone
Biles Story: Courage To Soar, based on her autobiography.
An animated film now features a digital avatar of Biles, the world’s most decorated gymnast, who’s joined SK-II’s stand to take the competition out of beauty.
The animated series, titled VS, is a part of the “Beauty is #NOCOMPETITION’’ campaign, which also enlists Chinese swimmer Liu Xiang and Japanese athletes, namely surfer Mahina Maeda, table tennis player Ishikawa Kasumi, badminton duo Ayaka Takahashi and Misaki Matsutomo, and members of Hinotori Nippon, the Japanese women’s national volleyball team.
Each of the six films explores a different facet of today’s toxic beauty competition: Trolls, Pressure, Image Obsession, Rules, Limitations, and Machine-Like
Mindsets. They are imagined as a kaiju, Japanese for a strange beast. Each kaiju represents an inner demon each athlete must defeat to define what beauty means to them.
VS was created through a collaboration between the Japanese beauty brand and multidisciplinary start-up WPP Black Ops.
The upcoming release of VS was recently announced in an enthralling takeover of New York’s Times Square, where a largerthan-life digital avatar of Biles took down her
kaiju — a 200-feet-tall “Beauty Troll King” made up of actual comments and tweets from trolls about how she looked or behaved in the course of her gymnastics career.
The epic battle, symbolising Biles’ fight against competing beauty standards and trolls, spanned 41 digital billboards in the bustling Times Square. The stunt also teased scenes from her film within the animated series, which also features theme song Take
A Look by singer-songwriter John Legend. “I am sharing my story so that young women and girls, who have experienced beauty trolling, know that they are not alone in their fight against the trolls and toxic beauty standards,” said Biles. “It really means a lot to me to share the important message that we define what beauty means to us. No one should tell us what beauty should or should not look, act or feel like.”
The US gymnast also joined SK-II in visiting the Lower East Side Girls Club to share her perspective on beauty standards with the young women. The conversations shed light on the toxic culture of beauty shaming and how the issue of beauty trolling starts as early as high school.
The “Beauty is #NOCOMPETITION’’ campaign was launched at the “2020 Makers Conference’’ held in February, in Los
Angeles. The conference gathered leaders in business, entertainment, tech and finance to explore ways to accelerate women’s equality.
Worldwide partner of the International Olympic Committee, SK-II was represented by Japan’s brand director YoeGin Chang.
“Beauty can be many things. But one thing it should never be, is a competition,’’ she said. “As the world directs its attention towards and celebrates the greatest competition for humanity, the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, we want to take this opportunity and call out the toxic competition in beauty that women face every day.’’
I am sharing my story so that young women and girls, who have experienced beauty trolling, know that they are not alone in their fight