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posts about #britainsmissingtopmodel more → Britain's Missing Top Model Misses The Mark
On BBC Show, Disabled Models Learn Same Lessons As Any Other Models
You Wanna Be On Top


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I agree that today's beauty standards are often unrealistic. That goes without saying. But there is a difference between making standards of beauty more realistic, and saying that absolutely every person (or at least every female person, since this is most often a female-centric issue) deserves to be thought of as "beautiful". In my opinion, no matter how you slice it, no beauty standard is going to consider EVERY person to be attractive. And why should it? Beauty is just one of MANY good qualities that it is possible for a person to have. We don't go around saying that every person deserves to be thought of as intelligent, or that every person deserves to be thought of as good at sports or art or science or whatever else, when it is clear that many people are not intelligent, many people are not good at certain things, etc. NO ONE has every good quality in the world, human beings are imperfect and we are all endowed with certain gifts and certain shortcomings. We should all be able to acknowledge that.
So why should beauty be any different ? It seems to me that the problem is that our society has elevated beauty to the point that people think that if they can feel beautiful, then their lives will be drastically improved. But what about people who are aware of their beauty and are still unhappy? This is hardly unheard of- think of the supermodels who commit suicide, and the celebrities who fall into drug abuse, not because they are unaware of their beauty but because BEAUTY DOES NOT EQUAL HAPPINESS.
What we SHOULD be doing is not trying to build a society in which people with obvious physical flaws feel 'beautiful', but instead a society in which people can know they are not beautiful and still value themselves as much as people who are beautiful. Obviously beauty standards will vary between societies, and what is considered beautiful in North America will be different from what is beautiful in Zambia or Mongolia or wherever else. And unrealistic beauty standards should be treated as a problem. But so should the idea that people who are not beautiful are somehow less worthy than people who are, regardless of what is considered 'beautiful' in a particular society. If we focus on this, maybe people won't need to try so hard to "feel beautiful" in the first place.
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DISABLED MODDLES: JUST LIKE REGULAR MODDLES
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Well, isn't that kind of the point? If we started saying that everyone could be models, would it not make the profession kind of meaningless?
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This is one reason (I know, the show's still pretty horrible) I can appreciate Tough Love. At least those women are focusing on learning they can find/have a healthy relationship--not competing with each other to prove they can find a healthy relationship better than all the other girls.
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I commented before I saw your post. I have a couple friends that have disabilities and they say they have a hard time with people not defining them as a disability.
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Why would you take a blog's word for it before watching? Sophie (the girl in the wheelchair) has gone on to feature in many other television programmes, launching an entire career in advocacy around disabled rights and visibility. This show gave her that start, and gave her a voice.
Why shouldn't we juxtapose beauty and disability? Taking a few nasty soundbites as a representation of the whole thing is completely unfair to all the women who took part in this worthwhile programme.
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How about, see it as a mystery! Will it be shite, or...not? Only one way to find out!
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Beautiful AND they don't talk! One step closer to the perfect woman! What a lucky guy...
/sarcasm
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