FFS, somebody did some graffiti on a bridge because they thought some people could use a fucking smile that day. It's not problematic in any way. Any way! Any way whatsoever. The suggestion that it is pisses me off and makes it hard for me to take those people seriously.
Beautiful, as a word, has a lot of different meanings. Positive ones. However appearance-centered it is, so fucking what? Don't kick anybody's teeth in for trying to make people feel good about themselves.
I feel with your indignation bel. These people confuse me. Oh how they confuse me :( I mean one girl was like "I hate this shit" and I was just sitting there going "....are we reading the same message?" I dont get it. Its fine if you think beauty shouldnt matter, its not my stance but its not a bad one, but to say that beauty shouldnt matter so it therefore should never matter to anyone and telling people they are beautiful just reinforces the patriarchy and reminds women they are only their looks just confuses and irritates me beyond words. Like what a hell of a jump that is. It's also IMO a narrow minded POV that says I see this thing THIS way and everyone else who doesnt is just oppressed! Like HDU. Some of us care about beauty thanks, and we do not limit our definition of beauty to what the tv tells us, kthnx. Besides I dont know how a sign that says "you are beautiful" harms anyone. Maybe it's not an "enlightening" message but dang who is it hurting? It's such a broad non specific message!
I have to agree with the naysayers on this one, if only because you CAN talk about inner beauty and the other meanings/definitions/connotations of beauty and what beauty SHOULD mean... but at the end of the day, nine people out of ten have already internalized beautiful = appearance, so unless everyone starts tagging "YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL... on the inside! for your achievements!" then I think the project is basically well-intentioned but misguided.
I mean, why does everything have to be about some intangible measure of beauty? Why do you have to feel beautiful (inside or out) to consider yourself worthwhile? Why doesn't anyone ever graffiti YOU ARE SMART or YOU HAVE A GOOD HEART or HEY, YOU'RE STILL ALIVE, YOU HAVEN'T COMPLETELY FUCKED UP YET
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Just to be clear, I wasnt advocating a reclaiming of beauty because it hasnt been taken anywhere, rather I meat that we shouldnt let the media define beauty for us. Also that apperances a re big part of our lives in this society so we cant pretend it doesnt matter anymore than we can pretend race doesnt exist and gender doesnt exist. we may say these things shouldnt matter and they SHOULDNT but they DO is what I meant. Thats why I dont think saying "you are beautiful" is wrong. That said I dont have any issue with your argument though, its not a bad question and but its not one I know how to answer though :(. and As I said before as an artist the idea of beauty is very important to me. I want to fill my life with beauty so I dont understand the sentiment of "beauty is unimportant" because to me its important. I get what you are saying though, beautiful gets over used. but IMO as I said in the post I do think the word by itself has many meanings that are not strictly tied to appearance and certainly not simply to women. But you know
As I said before as an artist the idea of beauty is very important to me. I want to fill my life with beauty so I dont understand the sentiment of "beauty is unimportant" because to me its important.
It's not that I disagree, but I think there's a point where the importance of beauty needs to be weighed against the effect it's having on our culture. There's nothing wrong with women telling other women they're beautiful. The problem is that beautiful has become synonymous with worthwhile or worthy of attention and when such a vague, frustrating, subjective concept is the go-to standard for women to judge themselves, that is doing us more harm than good.
And if promoting other values has to be done at the expense of the notion of "beauty" (or at least beauty as perceived by the rest of the world) then I say, well, I guess I am saying beauty is unimportant. At least compared to other things. But you may feel differently, so I ymmv back at you. :)
I get what you are saying, beautiful in the aesthetic sense does get played up alot more than it should. I mean as I said before I dont see the word beautiful or the concept of beauty as something fixed or relative only to women even however not everyone shares that POV. So if we are talking in general yeah beautiful gets overused and it can put way more importance on the appearance than should be done. But I dont think beauty itself or beautiful is damaging our culture, I think it's that this culture is driven so much by images, largely plastic superficial images. Its part of the heavily consumerist nature of our culture. American culture is very commerce driven and our media reflects that. Everyone needs to look picture perfect. No blemishes, no marks, no visible flaws. I mean I was amazed at how NORMAL everyone looked when I first started watching british tv, and while I dont their standard holds true for all of europe or the rest of the world, the fact is in the US there is a very narrow standard of what is acceptably attractive.
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A) I don't think it's necessarily targeted at only women
B) Beauty can be any number of things, and the markers for beauty are different depending on society and culture.
C) The message says that EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO READS THE SIGN IS BEAUTIFUL. That's fairly positive to me. It's not limiting its scope to, "you're beautiful if you look like a supermodel" or, "you're beautiful only if you're an able-bodied white chick."
Yeah if I saw it I might smile too, I guess I just find this interpretation very cynical, that the sign is just gonna somehow make women more self conscious and focus more on their looks as if its the only important part of themselves because this sign said so. You can take issue with the way girls self esteem is wrapped so strongly around their appearance, when it shouldnt, and that making sure girls call themselves beautiful may not be helpful at all when its the sole focus but that sign in particular isnt directed at girls or women but whoever sees it, so yeah that argument isnt really flying with me right now.
I can understand the indignation when it comes to beauty=physical aesthetic, since I for one define beauty as something completely different and unrelated to looks. But for this message, I honestly can only see encouragement to see yourself as beautiful, however you define beauty, and to give you more confidence to continue.
The main issue I would have with that message would be if other people tamper with that message or other people ruin the positive meanings of the message by saying things like "you're the exception" or something, which I'm guessing is likely to happen. So although it's a positive and well meaning note, the pessimistic side of me is expecting others to ruin the good intentions instead XD
Yeah exactly, a person would have to interpret the message a very specific way for it to be even remotely harmful.
LOL Mari. I love how that's the first thing you think of XD Its ok, my faith in humanity isnt that high either. Though when people fail and fail again I still get mad. Like "I know you are all selfish assholes but dang at least try not to be!" I just keep waiting to be proven wrong.
I completely agree with your state, but just to add another dimension to the whole beauty/attractive (in regards to physical appearance) debate, its important to note that there is a genetic predisposition to find certain faces more attractive than others. there is also a genetic predisposition to find certain faces as beautiful. Babies have been known to spend more time viewing the faces of those who are considered beautiful/attractive in comparison to those who are not viewed that way in most social situations. There have also been studies that show that even with cultural and individual differences in what is beautiful/attractive, there is still a "standard" collection of features which all groups find to be attractive.
As for the post on ontd...way to for them to overact to a positive reinforcement message that applies to everyone and not restricted to any specific sex. Women and men of any racial background deserve the right to feel beautiful inside and to see an anonymous message like that is just an uplifting thing to come
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Beautiful, as a word, has a lot of different meanings. Positive ones. However appearance-centered it is, so fucking what? Don't kick anybody's teeth in for trying to make people feel good about themselves.
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I mean, why does everything have to be about some intangible measure of beauty? Why do you have to feel beautiful (inside or out) to consider yourself worthwhile? Why doesn't anyone ever graffiti YOU ARE SMART or YOU HAVE A GOOD HEART or HEY, YOU'RE STILL ALIVE, YOU HAVEN'T COMPLETELY FUCKED UP YET ( ... )
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It's not that I disagree, but I think there's a point where the importance of beauty needs to be weighed against the effect it's having on our culture. There's nothing wrong with women telling other women they're beautiful. The problem is that beautiful has become synonymous with worthwhile or worthy of attention and when such a vague, frustrating, subjective concept is the go-to standard for women to judge themselves, that is doing us more harm than good.
And if promoting other values has to be done at the expense of the notion of "beauty" (or at least beauty as perceived by the rest of the world) then I say, well, I guess I am saying beauty is unimportant. At least compared to other things. But you may feel differently, so I ymmv back at you. :)
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B) Beauty can be any number of things, and the markers for beauty are different depending on society and culture.
C) The message says that EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO READS THE SIGN IS BEAUTIFUL. That's fairly positive to me. It's not limiting its scope to, "you're beautiful if you look like a supermodel" or, "you're beautiful only if you're an able-bodied white chick."
If I had read it, it would have made me smile. :X
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The main issue I would have with that message would be if other people tamper with that message or other people ruin the positive meanings of the message by saying things like "you're the exception" or something, which I'm guessing is likely to happen. So although it's a positive and well meaning note, the pessimistic side of me is expecting others to ruin the good intentions instead XD
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LOL Mari. I love how that's the first thing you think of XD Its ok, my faith in humanity isnt that high either. Though when people fail and fail again I still get mad. Like "I know you are all selfish assholes but dang at least try not to be!" I just keep waiting to be proven wrong.
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As for the post on ontd...way to for them to overact to a positive reinforcement message that applies to everyone and not restricted to any specific sex. Women and men of any racial background deserve the right to feel beautiful inside and to see an anonymous message like that is just an uplifting thing to come
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