Mila Jovovich smiles at you, trying to convince you that "you are worth it" � new hair dye, new clothes, new cosmetics. Many other celebrities almost dance in front of your eyes, promising the look you want so much; feeling attractive, fulfilling your wishes and having a wonderful life. So you buy the hair dye, you buy the lipstick; you try them at home and the initial moment of glee turns into a feeling of disappointment because the person you see in the mirror is neither you nor anyone you really know or want to be.
At A Glance Author Ania Contact [email protected] IAM deadly pale When N/A Location Poland For my personal convenience I call it being a victim of the modern culture and I must admit I suffer from it now and then. We are all manipulated and led to believe that getting a certain product or looking the certain way will make us happy and successful. "Because you are worth it!", "be yourself!", Grab life by the horns" and many other slogans from the glamorous ad world try to and actually succeed in convincing us that our lives are about the looks, possessing luxurious products and going to certain places. They create the fairy world where, just like in old fairy tales, we should not eat (but not because we would risk staying in this world forever but rather because eating makes us fat and being fat is bad!), where we should party and forget about our daily problems. Unreal land with unreal ideals and standards.
The key words really seem to be "unreal" or even "false" as nothing is ideal both in our nor in the "fairy world" created by TV/magazine ads. After removing their make-up, models do not look so splendid anymore; after washing off cosmetics, their bodies are not that flawless; without Photoshop everything ends up as mundane and on the verge of ugliness. But most of us do not want to know that. We prefer to believe that there really are sterile and perfect beauties that need no embellishment or Photoshop tricks. We long for real, pure beauty and perfection, blaming ourselves for not being the same.
It is a vicious circle as the modern pop culture shows us more and more images and lies about "being yourself", "waking up your inner self", "being just you" and yet denying us the right to be our imperfect selves. Focusing on individuality, all the pop culture, and industry that stands behind it, wants is to make us all look exactly the same and thus fill the wallets and bank accounts of various CEO's and managers. We always end up with feeling dissatisfied and just posers because all we really try to do while buying certain brands and reacting to certain ads is trying desperately to be someone we are not!
The mainstream easthetics does not accept easily standards and looks that differ from it. Ugliness or certain body types might be a hit one season but get back to the underground the next and people that are "beautiful in an interesting way" feel pushed to the margin again. The pop culture and its rules do not look back to see what happened to us who look the way we do and do not have experts, hair stylists etc. to improve our looks! Obviously, we are worthy enough to buy certain products but not good enough to be appreciated for the way we look without them!
The sad truth is that ads usually exaggerate and following their suggestions does NOT make us individuals, original, unique people but rather the exact opposite. If you are worth buying a given brand of clothes and cosmetics, then so is your neighbor or someone whom you do not like at all. A chain reaction and you catch yourself at seeing all around you people who look just like you even though you hoped for an original, just "so you" look! If following someone's, even an anonymous ad author's, advice doesn't work for you, then what you really should do? Maybe try to be just yourself?
Sometimes the moment of awakening comes with our first or second or hundredth visit at a tattoo or piercing shop � the moment you pass the line of widely accepted things and do something really just for yourself might mean that you finally come to accept and listen to yourself. It is not a matter of one tattoo or two nipple rings but a matter of creating your own easthetics without looking back at what others might think about you and the way you look!
Of course it is not that simple. Being modified became a part of pop culture as well. A few weeks ago I found myself in the middle of a conversation with my work colleagues and, weirdly enough, one of them wanted to have a look at my elbow tattoo. She seemed to like it but someone else asked not to get him wrong but ... all he associates with tattoos is just a bunch of blonde girls with lower back tattoos, done just because it is "in" at the moment. It shows clearly that also tattoos, and other kinds of body modification, might be exploited (I do not think it is too heavy a word in this context) by pop culture and its market. There are always some people who are into certain things just for the shock/fashion value. In this regard body modification might be as good a tool in the powerful managers' hands as any other branch of the industry. Fortunately, body modification is more than that and that is its way to escape the greedy claws of the market and let its "victims" try to truly express themselves.
The first kind of body modification all of us come across is just physical activity. Some of us go for it because they have to (school, hyper-active parents, real or imagined obesity) but it changes the way we think of ourselves. Doing push-ups, crunches, biking, running, walking and many other forms of physical activity allow us not only to modify our bodies but also minds. Thus we get the chance to discover who we really are and maybe, just maybe, find our real selves. Some of us are lucky to discover that they are able to be disciplined and strong while others find out that there is a lot of work in this department for them ahead. All of us, however, get the chance to be one-on-one with our thoughts, test our physical and mental limits and learn something about ourselves. Physical activity, unlike getting new stuff at the shopping mall, brings us closer to what is inside of us and thus gives us a chance to become our true selves. Also, a great advantage of physical activity is that after some time we might actually come to love with the way we look and accept our anatomical traits, thus ceasing to compare our bodies with those of TV divas.
For doctors and society physical activity is one of the most praised things a person can do in their spare time � lean, healthy body, sane mind etc. The fact that thanks to working out your body might conform to widely acceptable standards is also a plus. It is an ideal union � "anima sana in corpore sano" (a healthy mind in a healthy body). There is, however, another good union which is not that well looked upon by our society and this is, of course, body modification as understood by BME readers, which requires making long-lasting decisions and (sometimes) lots of pain on its undertakers' part. Basically it gives you the same effects as physical activity � it lets you change your body, keep/regain/get your sanity, test your limits and make you happy. Of course the main purpose of this text is not arguing that physical activity should be perceived on the same level as body modification per se or the opposite. I (only) outlined this question here to make my point clearer.
What both physical activity and body modification per se have in common is their ability to make us not escape or avoid "ourselves" but let them come up closer to the surface. Both physical activity and body mods of various sorts help us accept ourselves the way we are and thus turn away from the unrealistic (at least for most of us) canons of beauty we are bombarded with from everywhere. Once you discover the wonder of relying on your body because it is fit, not emaciated by diets or fasting, you *hopefully* will stop caring whether you look like Kate Moss or not. Once you are able to pay some thoughts to a tattoo design you wanted so much and then actually to get it done, you will be busy with admiring it on your very own body and cherishing it the way it is, not the way the pop culture or the fasion industry wants it to be. Once you decide to go for a piercing, you *hopefully* will come to peaceful terms with prospects of some possible scaring and your piercing leaving a slight mark on your body and do not think too much about what others would think!
I am arrogant enough to think that I am not that blind or narrow-minded to overlook other facets of the issue I tried to raise here. I am aware of the fact that everything is relative and everyone is different and thus craving for "normal", widely accepted standards of beauty might be as real a passion and as true a pursuit as for us, BME readers and IAM-ers, body modification is. I dare to say, though, that I am convinced that the fashion/beauty/pop culture industry does not want to see us the way we really are and thus makes us feel about ourselves in the same way � (too) imperfect, always eligible and ready for the extreme make-over, to please others. On the other hand, even though body modification is perceived by many as a way to conform or fit, it is, in fact, our attempt, desperate or not, to become who we really are or want to be. Unlike pop culture with its many industry branches which change us on the outside and not that much on the inside, body mods change us not only on the outside but also on the inside as with every new decision concerning body modification and with every new mod added to our bodies, we become stronger, more real and more us.
I am tall but not pretty or skinny enough to have ever considered a modeling career; I pay some attention to ads and fashion but I try to choose from them only these things I really like and I cannot say that I am the best clad person out there. I do dye my hair and I do use lipstick, mascara and other thingies of this kind because I like the way they make me look. However, when I see celebrities convincing me that I am worth (enough) to buy this cool brand of shampoo or wrinkle cream, then I beg to differ and prefer to say "I want to get this tattoo (piercing/whatever) instead cuz I'm worth it !"