Every makeover movie montage I’ve ever seen is of a skinny white woman with glasses and curly hair getting contact lenses and a blowout. By makeover law, the makeover must happen upstairs, so that the male gaze can be unleashed on the final product as she descends the stairs, hair straightened and blue eyes blinking. At some point the madeover woman realizes that it’s what’s inside that makes her attractive, and if she could just keep being herself, she’ll get the guy, and the friends, and the homecoming crown. But she generally keeps wearing the contacts.
I Feel Pretty is about a woman, played by Amy Schumer, who gets that makeover in her mind; after a severe blow to her head, she believes herself to be supermodel-beautiful. The movie’s premise is that it would be surprising, even comical, for a conventionally attractive white woman who is above a size 4 to find herself pretty. Even the trailer cruelly lingers on Schumer’s belly, then pauses for laughter.
The apparent takeaway of the movie — after Schumer’s character gets the job, gets the guy, finds her self-esteem — is that you can renegotiate the relationship you have with the world, and yourself, as long as you’re confident. It doesn’t matter what you look like. It matters how you feel.
My Instagram feed is cluttered with this kind of messaging. It’s generally in the form of targeted posts from “fitness influencers” who live by the beach. They’re all white, and they post long captions about loving the body you’re in, under selfies that flatter two things: achingly thin waists, and gleaming white skin. I can’t help but laugh when I see it, and as I tap “Hide this ad” so hard my phone screen cracks a bit more. Love your body — look how easy it is for me! (One of the most recent comments on one of them is, “Every chick should look like this.”)
It just feels disingenuous for someone who checks every western-beauty-standard box to tell you that all you have to do is be confident. That everything else will fall into place. That if you can just believe in yourself, everyone else will think you’re pretty, too. The problem with telling women — and especially women of color — that low self-esteem is their biggest obstacle to feeling pretty is that it’s a lie. When you don’t fit any of the physical norms set by the society you inhabit, low self-esteem is an effect, not a cause.
Every day, we’re bombarded by this never-ending broadcast of assertions that only people who are thin and white are pretty, are worth looking at. And even if we try to shake off those assertions — the ones that appear in advertisements, on TV, on the runway — all media still suggests that there really is a singular definition of beauty. It is for thin, white people that designers construct and color their clothes; it’s thin and white people that get to be participants in a brand’s “lifestyle.”
This messaging deals measurable damage. Young women internalize the ideal that society projects, and it can lead to depression, disordered eating behavior, self-harm, and worse.
Research has shown that European beauty standards have harmful effects on black women’s life trajectories. The number of cosmetic procedures requested by Asian-American, Hispanic, and black women have been increasing triplefold compared to the number performed on white women. And seeing exhortations to just love ourselves more from attractive white women compounds the problem. It tells us that we’re the reason we don’t feel pretty, rather than society as a whole.
It’s yet another reason that representation matters. 2016 was the first year that every runway show during New York Fashion Week featured a non-white model. And a study conducted earlier this year found that the vast majority of all minority demographics don’t see themselves depicted accurately on screen.
I Feel Pretty isn’t progressive. It’s misguided victim-blaming disguised as empowerment. What would have actually been progressive is a movie about a woman of color finding herself pretty, in a society that wouldn’t find that a joke. It would be progressive to see a world that acknowledges and embraces non-white beauty without tokenizing or fetishizing it. It would be progressive to see society give us a reason to have confidence, not scold us for losing it.
To tell someone that they’re pretty is to say more than just “You’re sexually attractive.” To tell someone they’re pretty is to tell them, “I like looking at you; you’re worth looking at.” This week, we’re looking at women of color we think are beautiful.
— Natalie
DEDDEH HOWARD
Deddeh Howard is a Liberian model who was tired of being told by agencies that they couldn’t sign her because they already had one black model. She started the Black Mirror project, in which she recreates iconic ad campaigns that only featured white models, and runs a beautiful blog that you should follow.
NILAB ABDURAHMAN & MARYA AYLOUSH
Nilab and Marya founded Austere Attire in 2010, offering beautiful, high-quality hijabs and garments for modern Muslim women. They also only work with women, and “aspire to spread a sense of sisterhood, confidence, and pride in our identity of Muslims.” Their message? No matter how you choose to cover yourself, you’re pretty. Follow their Instagram here.
ASHLEIGH SHACKELFORD
Ashleigh Shackelford is a producer, artist, and writer who founded Free Figure, an organization that uses community programming, campaigns, and data to take on mainstream, white-centric beauty standards that “push more expectations and violence on those who never fit the standard to begin with.” Read more about Free Figure’s work here.
Token is a project by Ari Curtis and Natalie Chang that celebrates the work and worth of women of color. Subscribe here to get the latest issues in your inbox.
