Beauty is in the "EYE" of the Beholder

(Focus in on this!)

“You always want what you can’t have.” That is a phrase I have heard as far back as I can remember. And so far, it seems to apply to many and most situations. The guy always chases after the girl that is “out of his league.” The girl always wants to newest Gucci bag that only the wealthiest celebrities can afford. The little kid wants the toy that his best friend bragged about on the playground even though he himself just got a new toy. And in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Pecola wants nothing more than to have the bluest eyes around and rid herself of her natural brown eyes. When Elihue Micah Whitcomb asks Pecola how he can help her, she exclaims that she wants him to help her with her eyes. He replies “’What about your eyes?’ [she says] ‘I want them blue’” (Morrison 174). Pecola’s situation brought my thoughts to the celebrity life and the impact it has on the common folk.

There is currently a standard look in Hollywood that will make you famous, attractive and successful. It seems “adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs – all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured” (20). Look at the trend: Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears (when she was blonde), Kirsten Dunst, Kate Hudson, Cameron Diaz, Scarlett Johansson, and the list goes on. (Pictured is the beautiful Kate Hudson--considered to be one of the most attractive in Hollywood today.) These are the current A-listers, most photographed and most gorgeous girls in the Hollywood Hills. And they all follow the same look.

You must wonder then what effect this has on all of us…”us” meaning the young girls from all over the nation that do not make millions of dollars a year and star in box office hits. This trend from Hollywood flows down to us and puts an image in our mind of what we should look like. I’m not saying blonde hair is better than brown (although I am a little biased), but how often do you see brunettes dying their hair blonde? ALL THE TIME! How often do you see blondes dying their hair brown? Not as often.

We have this picture in our mind that blonde hair, blue eyes and perfect skin is the definition of beauty. Another component of this beauty has become body size. Nearly every week you can read the magazines about some celebrity being too fat and two weeks later they claim she is anorexic and needs to go to rehab. There is this imagined “perfect” body type that few people really have yet many desire. (Sometimes people cannot distinguish between reality and the imagined.) The result of this is seen in not only the celebrity world but all over the country. Girl after girl and woman after woman suffers from bulimia or anorexia due to an unreasonable feeling of obesity. They want what they don’t have, just as Pecola wanted blue eyes rather than brown eyes.

Even when we have what we think others want, we still have insecurity and uncertainty about the perception other have of us. Pecola, after believing she has blue eyes, exclaims “Just because I got blue eyes, bluer than theirs, they’re prejudiced” (Morrison 197). Once again, dissatisfaction arises.

To combat this, we must introduce a feeling of satisfaction. (Which of these is beautiful to you? ..key word: YOU) Rather than continually trying to change and become what we are not, we must accept what we are and be content with it. I find myself doing the same thing that Pecola did and that many people around the world do. Sometimes I think I’m too short, or should be thinner, or have blonder hair, or “bluer eyes” (Morrison 202). But if I sit back and look at the different people who pass by, I realize that each is beautiful in their own special way and that "preference for certain colors and shapes varies" (Bump 193). No, not everyone looks the same—but that makes each and every one of us beautiful…in our own way.