The first time I heard India Arie’s song “Video,” I remember exactly where I was, driving through the farm-lands in rural Massachusetts on a summer’s day, and when the first line came on the radio I literally shrieked for joy! “This was it!” I thought. But when traditionally beautiful people say beauty doesn’t matter, how seriously can we take them? Slowly, advertising is expanding the beauty norm, but generally speaking, pop culture has not strayed far from it. Some people theorize that in the Western world being white alone exemplifies beauty (Donella, 2019). I won’t go into an analysis of how beauty standards have developed, but being thin, white, young, wealthy and able-bodied translates to being beautiful. Today, beauty is most often defined as particular physical traits ascribed to societal norms. Who defines beauty, anyway? The Ancient Greeks believed that one could only perceive beauty through the mind, and that beauty forms the base of knowledge and beingness.
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