In today’s social media frenzy world, looks matter a lot, or, should I say, if you have the looks, people are hooked. It is startling to see how a shiny exterior hides the meek interior.
“Inner beauty matters the most.”
“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.”
Pressure to fit into the beauty standards approved by society
These seem to be just phrases nowadays. As we can see, talent and intelligence often seem to take a backseat if you don’t fit into the so-called beauty standards approved by society. In a country as diverse as ours, it’s unfortunate to see the obsession with skin colour. Fair is beautiful; who are we to decide that? No wonder fairness creams make a ton. What’s beautiful is when one is fair enough to like people based on their kind hearts and good deeds. Not their external appearance.
It’s startling to see how body shaming is so prevalent these days; it starts right from childhood. Personally, having always been on the heavier side, there have been so many incidents right from when I was a kid till now in my mid-20s. The nagging and comments about my body don’t stop. It has taken me years and a lot of willpower to get through comments like, ‘You got a wonderful smile and a pretty face.’
‘You should tone down that waist.’
I have understood that trying to make people understand that each body is different and people come in different shapes and sizes is a rather daunting task.
Every body is to be cherished
Every individual can’t end up looking the same. If you want someone to be happy, then you should help them out in their times of need, or you can simply refrain from passing such insensitive comments. Relatives, only in name, because you seldom find any relativity with them. They can be the harshest critics, who are the first to take a dig at how we look. You always seem to have a problem with everything you do or don’t do. You are never tall, slim, healthy, or good enough for them. I completely get why, at times, or should I say always, we, the youth, feel like skipping family events. Why be surrounded by people who can lower your morale?
Decoding this myth in a Korean drama
What made me write about body issues was when I recently saw the Netflix Korean drama “The Mask Girl”. This show is an eye-opener in many ways, as it talks about beauty standards, childhood trauma, plastic surgery, and the dark world of the internet. Yet I would say there are some disturbing scenes of murder, sexual assault, and domestic violence that may trigger some people.
In “The Mask Girl”, we get introduced to the world of Kim, a woman in her late 20s who is not at all confident about her face. As a child, she was like any other kid—happy and carefree. She was a stage animal who loved singing and dancing. But as she grew up in her teens, somehow the people who once appreciated her cuteness and her talent no longer did. Just because she didn’t turn out to be as beautiful as per the so-called ‘beauty standards.’
Things became so tough for her, to the point of her mother disowning her, as she was also ashamed of her daughter’s looks. Kim, as an adult, gets a job and starts living all by herself. She’s like any other love-struck person who daydreams and fantasises about finding the right match for her. Despite having the perfect body, the digs at her having an ‘ugly’ face lower her self-esteem, and she becomes very lonely and insecure.
Having never found love and affection or received attention from the opposite sex, Kim resorts to the dark world of the internet to overcome her loneliness. She gets into the role of a ‘MASKED GIRL’ who appears on an adult site and gains many fans. Unlike the real world, it is the virtual dark web where she feels beautiful and confident.
Her happiness is short-lived when she has two unfortunate fan encounters where she’s brutally assaulted and raped, and while trying to defend herself, she ends up being a murderer. Fearing that she’ll be arrested, she tries to adopt a new identity, gets plastic surgery, a new face, and a new KIM who is a bar dancer and singer. This is the face that she always wanted.
She’s happy with her new life. She feels that now, with her beautiful face, all her sorrows have come to an end. She now has everything that she always craved: love and attention. But her happiness is short-lived, as her past catches up to her and she gets embroiled in a series of unfortunate incidents. Eventually, Kim ends up in prison and dies.
So was the new beautiful face that she got worth everything? Did the beauty get revealed or the beast?
Body Shaming
Involves humiliating someone by making inappropriate or negative comments about their body size or shape. As well as “fat shaming,” you may also hear negative comments if you’re underweight or about a specific body part. Experiencing body shaming can interfere with your self-image and make you feel extremely self-conscious. This can escalate into body dysmorphic disorder, where you become obsessed with a perceived appearance flaw that can create repeated avoidance behaviours. (https://www.helpguide.org/articles/abuse/body-shaming.htm)
Body Dysmorphic disorder
Is a mental health condition that disrupts how you see and feel about your own body and appearance. People commonly experience negative thoughts and emotions about how they look, which can cause severe disruptions in their lives and undermine their mental and physical well-being (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9888-body-dysmorphic-disorder)
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