With the summer coming up (painstakingly slowly it seems), like most people I’m sure, I’ve been thinking about body image. My whole life I’ve grown up in an amazing family that is constantly pulling each other up and never lets anyone forget how great they are. Though we aren’t specifically setting out for it, a huge part of all of our relationships is promoting confidence in one another. I never really understood this as a kid, especially as I came to realize that not everyone had a family, or I suppose not everyone had a support system, that was the same way.
Like most children, if I ever wanted to look like anyone or dress like anyone, it was someone in my family or someone I had seen on television, because that’s who I was most exposed to. What was different about my family, though, especially my mom, was that whenever I said I wanted to be like someone else, I was told that being myself was better than being anyone else. People on television were no different than I was, except they had jobs working on shows and I didn’t, which didn’t mean much because everyone had different jobs. Basically, I was always taught not to glamorize and idolize people in the media. The only problem is that no matter how much this is drilled into anyone, it’s almost impossible to avoid.
I’ve recently started a new book that is going to be made into a movie. The book is one of those editions where it has glossy page inserts of scenes in the movie that correspond to scenes in the book. Of course, I looked at them immediately, which made me excited to read the story. As soon as the main characters were introduced and described, however, I got a little upset. Mostly, about the female lead, who was described in the book as being curvy and having curly red hair. In the pictures from the movie, she was blonde and just as tall and skinny as any actress. I was so mad that the social construct of body image had to have this effect on my book, on my characters.
While I don’t mean to generalize, it seems that most people who are part of media at all have about the same body type or hair color that would correspond to the most stereotypical type of the particular race or gender. In movies that were first books, they rarely actually resemble the descriptions in the book, unless that description corresponds to the status quo. The problem with this is that when it’s all that someone is exposed to, it becomes all they know, and therefore what they think is normal and the right way to be. Knowing that body image is a social construct doesn’t make it any easier to ignore any more than knowing that someone isn’t good for you so you shouldn’t talk to them.
There is nothing wrong with the predominant body types showcased in popular media, but because there is nothing wrong with them, doesn’t mean there is something wrong with other body types. It can be incredibly difficult, especially during swimsuit season, to remember this, but it’s just something that we all need to remember not to forget. Every body type is unique, so comparing any two types would be like comparing apples and oranges. Neither is better than the other, they are just different. It might have taken me twenty years to realize it, but my mom taught me one of the most important things I’ll ever need to know, that there is no need for comparison with other people, just know that being yourself is the very best that can be.
