Dragging Out the Inner Supermodel

January 25th, 2010 → 12:09 pm @ AntoniaDiNardo

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Vogue, Vanity Fair, Allure, Glamour, InStyle….you name it, I read it. I’m fascinated by fashion, the models, the celebrities, the advertisements for things I can’t afford. But my addiction was compounded years ago when I discovered tabloids (People Magazine and US Weekly are my preference, but I’ll stoop to OK! or Life&Style if I really need a fix). Not to mention…drumroll please…Perez Hilton’s generally controversial (but consistently honest and entertaining) website. Mr. Hilton’s blog may not technically be a magazine, but it fulfills my requirements for good, guilty reading. Scandals and pretty people.

I often wonder how much more useful information I could retain if I weren’t saving space for, say, Octomom’s real name or who Jennifer Aniston might be dating this week. But I simply can’t help myself. Fashion magazines and tabloids are truly a guilty pleasure. For me, they are a momentary distraction from the humdrum of the everyday. A minute to laugh at the absurdity of human nature…not to mention find out what everyone wore to the Golden Globes. Thank goodness that these days my fascination with the lives of the rich and famous stems from a much healthier place than it did when I was fifteen. Once upon a time, I wanted to be the women in these magazines. Or at least look like them.

As a teenager, I was freckled with coke-bottle glasses, cowlicks, and a perpetual acne breakout. Not to mention, flat-chested and stick-thin with an oversized nose. Of course, my father always said my nose had “character.” So, it felt a bit harder to read those magazines back then. Okay, a lot harder. I took every celebrity’s looks seriously, from their make-up down to the shoes they were wearing. I dreamed of having Charlize Theron’s nose. And Penelope Cruz’s eyebrows. And Natalie Portman’s haircut. There’s a reason magazines like Vogue and Elle aren’t allowed in clinics where young women are being treated for eating disorders or depression. If you aren’t happy with the way you look, these magazines will make you feel worse. I actually stopped reading magazines for a while in college because I needed to figure out who I was before I could continue looking at what the media was telling me I ought to be. And I’m glad I did, because now I can enjoy them again.body battles

Studies show that we see more ads featuring gorgeous women in one day than our parents did throughout their entire childhood. Another study shows that the current ideal weight for women (as portrayed in most magazines) is only achievable by a scant 5% of the American population. What we see everyday as an ideal is actually totally impractical. Not to mention, every ad we see is airbrushed within an inch of its life. What is real anymore?

So perhaps I am the only one, but I feel there’s something wrong with publishing a cover story about a fame-hungry 23-year-old who has undergone crazy surgery and ended up with breasts bigger than her head. And a face stretched so tight across her skull that it might not move…ever again. Of course, I’m referring to this week’s issue of People Magazine featuring Heidi Montag on the cover, with an inside slugline that screams “Obsessed With Being ‘Perfect.’”

To sum up, Ms. Montag felt that the pressure of her future career depended almost entirely on her looks. So she had 10 separate surgical procedures in one day, then shut herself in her home for seven weeks to heal. Now she has debuted her new self on the cover of People Magazine claiming this unrecognizable person is a better version of herself, the person she looked like on the inside all along. But she’s also blaming childhood teasing and Hollywood pressure for her choice to turn to surgery. In contradiction, she then stated that she is a “testimony that beauty and confidence is really within.” So which is it Heidi? To portray this young woman as anywhere close to a success story is a travesty. So People Magazine, why are you validating her?

If you grew up without ever being teased, please stand up. If you never felt the pressure to look different than you are, please raise your hand. And most of all, if you have never, ever been dissatisfied with the way you look…not even once…please call me because I’d like to take you out to coffee and hijack the source of your lifelong confidence. Heidi Montag, welcome to The Club of The Norm. It’s time to get used to being insecure sometimes. I hope your solution works for you, but I also hope no one else will follow your example.

Growing up, the only thing that made me change my self-concept was me. Mostly because I like to think that I got a bit smarter as I got older. Well, ah-hem, contact lenses and a haircut helped too. But I certainly never thought there was a supermodel living inside me that just needed $30,000 dollars of plastic surgery to get out. And these days, I finally agree with what my parents told me all throughout childhood…my nose does have character. I just had to grow into it.

For more on female body image, eating disorders, self esteem and the effects of advertising, check out this Ohio State article.

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AntoniaDiNardo

Antonia DiNardo is a freelance writer and film production designer living in Winston-Salem, NC. She favors absurdly long earrings that look like cat-toys and/or fishing lures, she cannot cook and her apartment is a mess right now.

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