Fin 3103
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Lang1003S T54 1st Writing TaskLee Tsz Kit, Daniel 20350944 There is no standard of beauty, it is beautiful just to be yourself. In these two decades, there is a huge influx of advertisement and TV commercials about slimming products and cosmetic surgeries that has undoubtedly aroused the consciousness of the public to their appearance. Some of them are even motivated to make a change on their appearance following the models endorsing famous brands. However, beauty should not be such a standardized concept because everyone has its unique idea on it. And this is why this essay argue that beauty does not need to be pursued by imitating others because there is never an authentic standard of beauty for anyone to follow. On the other hand, there must be something on us that is beautiful. Going after the media’s definition of beauty does not enhance your glamour. Many teenagers started to have dissatisfaction on their body or even low self-esteem on themselves under the idealization of thinness proposed by the media (Darryl, 2008)1 and have their concept of beauty distorted. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the word ‘beauty’ refers to the quality of being pleasing, or someone or something that gives great pleasure. In other words, any characteristic on a person that could please others can be defined as beauty. Nothing in the universe can be described as ‘absolutely beautiful’ or ‘absolutely not beautiful’ because the people only give subjective comments from their instincts (Santayana, 1955)2. Even though some people share similar opinions when judging on the appearance of others, they may not have the same extent of appreciation on them. With a hundred of people judging on the same thing, there will certainly be a hundred different pieces of opinion on it. Therefore, there is no point in transforming ourselves just to cater to the views of different people because never can all the critics be satisfied, meanwhile there will also be someone who can realize our beauty. It is meaningless to try to pursue the media’s portrayal of beauty because it is just an achievement of perfection in only a small portion of people’s mind.
We possess a variety of beauties which tend to be overlooked by the people nowadays. It is found that only 4% of the young women in US consider themselves beautiful (Schoolgirls, 2013)3. However, the appearance is just a superficial interpretation of beauty. What is needed by these people is not a celebrity-like appearance but a new perspective to realize their own beauties. For instance, the relatively short height of a man to his peers could also be looked upon as beauty despite the traditional belief that height is positively related to attractiveness. Being shorter gives an approachable and amiable impression and makes them more comfortable to talk to (Psychology Bulletin, 1989)4. This enables them to make friends more easily and their height can be perceived as a kind of beauty to gain popularity in social contact. Even a scar on the hand could be beautiful because it symbolizes the courage of a once injured person to overcome his difficulties. It is a beautiful landmark that witnessed the process of the careless adolescent to develop into a more mature and cautious adult. Everyone is imperfect because of the defects on it. But it is all these flaws that constitute our uniqueness and attractiveness. All the people are beautiful; the point is whether they could aware their beauties. Some people may argue that the beauties of the award-winners from different beauty pageants are widely recognized, so they are more beautiful than the normal people and they define what beauty is (Banet-Weiser, 1999)5. This argument is not to be supported nevertheless. The candidates win the prize just because they are closer to the ideology of beauty advocated by the media. Take the skin colour as an example: Most of the magazines and TV commercials use the images of fair-skinned women as a sight capturing strategy, and it gradually instill the readers with a concept that light complexions are more beautiful. Therefore, the judges and audiences are more inclined to choose the candidates with fair complexions as the winner. In fact, the darker-skinned contestants and even the public are not any worse than the champion because beauties cannot be quantified and compared. It is a matter of realization and appreciation on others and ourselves because beauties are concealed on different people in different forms.