Last night, the girl who won was a dark-skinned African American from a tiny town down south. Perhaps Arkansas, but I'm not sure. It actually brought me to tears. She cried and cried, saying that growing up she never felt pretty, because there were no examples of women who looked like her in the media. She wants to model, because she wants to be a role model for dark-skinned black girls who don't know that they can be lovely, because the fashion industry tells us that beauty does not include them.
I always expected it would be difficult to raise girls to be healthy young ladies with strong self-esteem given all the images they see in popular culture. Now that women seem only too happy to exploit themselves, it has to be even worse. Add to that skin color and it makes my stomach hurt to think of what women of color must go through to find a confident, healthy, self-identity. It is sickening that black women, who are so very beautiful, feel invalidated because whites have controlled the images for so long. I am glad it is changing.
Whether we like it or not, the images we see in the media and popular culture affect how we feel about ourselves. While I dismiss the fashion industry as shallow and silly, it influences how women feel about themselves. Tyra Banks and "America's Next Top Model" are actually doing a positive service for the self-image of young ladies. The contestants represent all races, some plus-size (although not terribly plus) and even the non-winners go on to successful careers. They are telling girls of all skin color and backgrounds that they can be beautiful and that is important.
Whether it is important to be beautiful should be up for debate, but the truth is that it matters in our society. I wish intelligence or talent or something else would be the most important factor. And some times those characteristics can be paramount. Yet studies repeatedly say that people react better to beauty. At the very least, these silly reality-TV shows are trying to redefine and expand what qualifies as beautiful. Perhaps it isn't so shallow after all.
