trendy imperfection
09 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
Metro published an article in today’s paper called “the year of the gap-tooth trend.” Apparently, teeth-gaps are in right now. Gone are the days of reconstructing your teeth to align straight + orderly. Say goodbye to the perfect smile, because it’s passé. I am excited by this prospect. I have a chip in my front tooth that I’ve always been a little self-conscious about. But apparently, I don’t have to worry about it anymore, because it’s individual and sexy.
These were my initial thoughts after reading this article in Metro. Then my mind went : “wait a second – if imperfections in my teeth are okay maybe other imperfections in me are okay as well.”
I know I am not alone when I say I scrutinize and condemn my body, far FAR too often. I eat healthy and am an active person. But I don’t have a six-pack, I don’t have a C-cup chest, and I do have a case of twenty-something acne. At this point in my life, my idea of a perfect fit for what my body should be is size 0-2 waist, larger breasts, and Daniel Radcliff abs (think Harry Potter in The Goblet of Fire when he’s shirtless in the Prefect’s bathroom). I think this is what I’ve been told to think is the “perfect” kind of body for me. And get angry when it refuses to look like that.
I rarely give myself accolades for the wonderful ways I take care of me, and instead bemoan the number times I haven’t gone to the gym this week.
And the madness doesn’t stop here. If you checked the cookies on my laptop, you would find google searches for pictures of celebrities looking heavy. Yup. This is a tool I use to feel (temporarily) better about myself. Earlier this week I saw a tabloid cover with a curvy Jessica Simpson, and internally triumphed over the fact that this once size-0 woman has gained weight. But then yesterday, while flipping through Lucky Magazine, I found some recent, rather thin looking pictures of JS, and my stomach got queasy. Is this a sickness? Yes, it totally is.
Despite this past week’s relapse in negative – thinking, I’ve started to fight this close-minded idea of beauty I have. I’ve re-explored old diaries of mine and was surprised by how I hated being skinny. 10-year-old Olivia was DYING to have a woman’s body.
About 15 Thanksgivings ago, I saw Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn for the first time. For those of you who don’t know the story, Sabrina leaves America an awkward, insecure girl who is (literally) suicidal because the man she loves does not love her back. Then she goes to France. Then she comes back a sophisticated, confident woman and receives plenty of male attention throughout the rest of the film. While watching this as a 10-year-old, unhappily thin girl, I assumed Audrey Hepburn would lose her baby skinny in France and return a curvy woman. Audrey returns with a new haircut and a new wardrobe, but her body stays the same. 10-year-old O was so disappointed with this: I couldn’t believe that men would fawn over a girl with a waiffish figure, like mine.
So apparently, at one point in my life, a full-woman’s figure was the beauty ideal I had for myself. That has changed.
But what hasn’t changed in the fifteen years since then is the discontent I have with my form. That judgmental beast has held its ground. And apparently I have always been comparing what I’ve got with the property of other females.
Being at peace with my body does not mean waging war against another woman’s bodies. It doesn’t mean Jessica’s body is “the good guy” and Audrey’s body is “the bad guy.” It means I stop comparing my body with theirs, period.
The thing is I don’t really know what I like or dislike about my body – my ego is so filled with what I think I should look like and defensiveness against other women that I’m in no place to take a sober look in the mirror.
“Cosmetic dentist Dr. Irwin Smifel claims people are coming to him to make their smiles look more natural… ‘It’s a trend toward individuality.’ “
Some woman are now investing money and getting their mouths fit for a natural looking gap-tooth. So people are now paying money to help them look imperfect. My mind went : “So one day, people may be stressing about NOT having love handles and femme-grips” – by grip I mean the slope of fat below the belly button. I’m coining the word “grip” in rejection of the word “pouch” or “muffin-top”, both of which I hate – “Maybe one day women will make sure they ingest the perfect ratio of cliff bars to 2% milk yogurt parfaits in order to obtain the perfect thigh diameter.” My synapses fired madly. “Or maybe, woman will take out a mortgage to change their bodies to be fatty in the places that my body has fat. ha Ha! Take that all you 0% body fat girls. Take that, six-pack abs!”
Just a side note, this is not a coy confession of an eating disorder. Most of us women, unfortunately, put ourselves through this kind of mental torture – even if it is unattached to bulimia or anorexia. But when I step outside of these manic circles I keep myself dizzy with, I realize this anger doesn’t really have to do with other women or the media or my body, even. It’s just a means of expressing some sort of discontent, which is probably internal and not external. I know many women who don’t look the way that I think I should look. I love and admire my friends’ figures and I don’t think any of them need to lose weight or change. It’s just myself that needs to adhere to all of this self-prescribed nonsense, which happens to be reinforced by the media.
bizarrely, I think we will get to a point where women are having fat injected in order to create the perfect imperfect body. We may already be there, what with reconstructive ass-surgery and collagen. Magazines and commercials and movies and TV may start to drop the skinny ideal for another, equally as impossible to obtain “perfect ratio”. As long as there’s money to be made in beauty + fashion, we will probably never reach a point where magazines will stop telling us that our bodies need modifying.
We can’t expect a revolution from the media, but we can achieve a private catharsis. And we can start by investing in our own, unique imperfections. Not Anna Paguin’s endearing gap-tooth, not Audrey Hepburn’s linear beauty or Jessica Simpson’s luscious form (or Daniel Radcliff’s abdomen). But the natural that we already have; that doesn’t have to be toned or separated or enhanced; the natural that doesn’t cost money or sleep or happiness.
Spread the word – imperfection is in. I know it’s trite to end on a “love yourself note.” but i really f*cking mean it. You’re great. I’m great. We’re all great. Imperfect, yes. But that’s where it gets interesting.
