webSalt

This is part 2 of a three-part series.

There’s another scene in The Devil Wears Prada that always stands out for me. It’s when Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) steps out of the town car at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, wearing a black John Galliano evening dress and Alexander McQueen shoes. She stands in the background of the action, drinking in the spectacle, until she is noticed and given an approving nod by Runway art director Nigel Kippling, whereupon she moves towards the red carpet and the gaggle of photographers, who hastily snap her picture (even though she is a nobody!) simply because she looks so good.

Let me return to that scene in a moment.

As I mentioned in my first article, we have a problem: there’s a disparity between how we look and how we want to look. Furthermore, the media, other people and our sinful hearts contribute to and exacerbate this problem by bombarding us with images of the ideal, reinforcing the standard and causing us to desire what we don’t have. This means that, for many of us, there is a psychological link between how we look and how we feel about ourselves—such that when we think we look good, we feel good, and when we don’t, we feel bad. I ended by pointing out that this psychological link means we have an even bigger problem: we believe the lies and give ourselves over to them.

As I’ve pondered this topic, I’ve identified four main lies that the world whispers in our ears. (I’m sure there are more, so if you think of any, feel free to add them in the comments.)

1. There is only one kind of beauty

Firstly, the world would have us think that there is only one kind of beauty. If you look at all the models, actors and actresses in the movies, on television, and in advertising, despite differences in hair and eye colour and minor facial characteristics, generally only one body type for women and one body type for men is being promoted—tall, lean, muscular, and appealing. The Association of Model Agents (AMA) has the following guidelines for would-be models:

Note that, among the Australian population, only about 10% of women are taller than 1.7m, and only 24.5% of men are taller than 1.8m.[2] In addition, Australians are among the tallest people in the world, which means that these percentages would be much smaller for other countries.[3]

The AMA is rather coy about weight restrictions, but in the fashion world, there seems to be the expectation that the skinnier you are, the better. In February 2008, Ali Michael, who, last season, was tipped to be the next supermodel, was told by runway directors that her legs were too plump after she gained five pounds.[4] In 2006, Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston[5] and Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos[6] died of anorexia-related complications, weighing in at 40kg and 44kg respectively for their 1.7m heights. (Note: 54-72kgs is considered to be the “healthy weight” range for someone 1.7m tall.[7]) There are indications that this trend is starting to turn around, but my feeling is that it still hasn’t filtered down to the masses.[8]

Weight and body shape obviously translate to clothing size, with smaller sizes being preferred. In The Devil Wears Prada, Andy Sachs identifies herself as a US size 6, which is roughly the equivalent of an Australian size 8. But despite being petite (certainly petite compared to me!), throughout the film she is repeatedly mocked and labelled “fat”.

To my mind, there’s something rather awful about the fact that the media and the fashion world promote just one kind of body and one kind of beauty. It fails to cater for the diversity of sizes and shapes in which God created human beings. Furthermore, it propagates a dreadful kind of conformity—as if it’s essential that we all look as though we’ve been carved from the same cookie cutter. Human beings are not factory-produced items; God created us in his image, but his image encompasses tall and short, straight and curvy, slender and stocky.

2. You should want to look like that

Secondly, the world tells us that we should want to look that way. The onslaught of images in the media, combined with social pressure, can make you feel like everyone else is doing it, so why not you? Don’t you want to be beautiful? Don’t you want to be the best person you can possibly be?

Now, there is a certain seductive element to this way of thinking. You see it in The Devil Wears Prada: despite being happy with her general appearance and despite possessing very little interest in fashion, Andy Sachs is slowly drawn into the world of Runway magazine—to the point where she’s changing both her behaviour and her diet to fit in and get ahead in the industry. Really, who could blame her: the clothes are gorgeous, the people look immaculate, and looking good gets you noticed by interesting people like the very handsome Christian Thompson (Simon Baker), who writes for The New Yorker. You’d be seduced too! No wonder there’s this constant temptation to make exercise/diet/beauty/clothing/lifestyle your god instead of the true and living God.

3. You can look like that

Thirdly (and this, I feel, is the most insidious of the lies), the world tells us that we can look like that. If we work hard enough—if we watch what we eat (or if we starve ourselves)—if we do enough exercise—if we exfoliate, moisturise, and dye/streak/curl our hair, we too can look the way people do in the media. Hey, all you need to do is fork out $1500 for that charcoal Burberry trench coat and it can be yours!

But the truth is, no-one looks like that. Watch the Red Carpet Special for the Academy Awards, and every single actress who passes in front of the cameras will make some reference to the amount of work that has gone into preparing her body for this big day. It’s not just personal trainers and specialty diets; it’s chemical peels, make-up and plastic surgery. In addition, looking that good takes an awful lot of work (and money) to maintain.

However, it’s not just exercise, diet, and beauty treatments; the ugly secret that lies behind the fashion and entertainment industries is that just about all the images you see have been retouched in some way to make them look slimmer, younger, sleeker, and sexier. The New Yorker’s profile piece on professional retoucher Pascal Danguin is eye-opening reading (in more ways than one!).[9] Dove drew attention to advertising’s fictional nature in their short film ”Evolution”, which moves from the make-up chair to the billboard, documenting all the steps in between—including the digital retouching that is done once the final photos have been selected. That video was shot as part of their ‘Real beauty’ campaign. The irony is all the images in that campaign were digitally retouched by Pascal Danguin. To quote from the film, “No wonder our perception of beauty is skewed”. The truth is, no-one looks like that—not even the people you think do. So what makes you think you can?

4. If you look like that, all your wishes will come true

Fourthly and finally, the world tells us that if we look like that, our deepest, most cherished wishes will come true. If we do what the world tells us to do—if we look the way the media wants us to look—we will be happy, rich, successful, popular, and loved. We will be influential and interesting, sexy and powerful, vivacious and significant. Even though we know this is not strictly true, part of us still adheres to the rules of the schoolyard where the most beautiful kids were the most popular and the ugliest kids were picked on and teased. We remember the fairytales where Cinderella’s transformation at the hands of her fairy godmother got her noticed by the prince—where the beauty turns the beast into a handsome prince—where the ugly duckling emerges a beautiful swan. And we think of movies like The Devil Wears Prada where the dowdy, unattractive girl gets a makeover, and suddenly things start going her way.

Of course, the truth is that there is no guarantee that any of these things will happen. Changing our appearance will not necessarily mean that people will like us any better and pay more attention to us. (If anything, if their attitude does change towards us, it’s a sign of their superficiality.) It probably won’t make us any happier either (or if it does, that happiness may not be permanent). And it’s highly unlikely that it will make us any more successful, rich, or influential.


Remember that The Devil Wears Prada scene I mentioned at the beginning of this article? To me, it encapsulates all the lies the world tells us. There is only one kind of beauty, and Andy Sachs in Galliano glamour embodies it. We should want to look like that; after all, she did. We can look like that; look at what she did to herself so she could! (Never mind that both Hathaway and Emily Blunt hardly ate anything during the film shoot, and spent much time commiserating with one another about how hungry they both were!) Furthermore, if we look like that, all our wishes will come true: like Andy, we will meet the approval of Runway’s art director, photographers will flock to take our picture, and we will attract the eyes of beautiful people like the gorgeous Christian Thompson.

It’s easy to think sometimes that the world cares about us—that the world has our best interests at heart. But when you dig a little bit deeper, it becomes clear that what they trying to sell us is nothing more than fool’s gold sprinkled with a little fairy dust. The lies they tell us are aimed towards making money and maintaining power. The more we believe the lies, the more we will open up our wallets, the more likely we will pay attention to what the world says.

So what do we do about our problem? I turn this subject in part 3.

By Karen Beilharz

[1] Association of Model Agents, Getting Started as a Model (accessed 2 September 2009).
[2] Australian Bureau of Statistics, How Australians Measure Up (accessed 2 September 2009).
[3] 'History of Human Height' (accessed 2 September 2009).
[4] Christina Binkley, 'Wasn't Skinny Supposed to Be Out of Fashion?', The Wall Street Journal, 28 February 2008 (accessed 2 September 2009).
[5] 'Ana Carolina Reston' (accessed 2 September 2009).
[6] 'Luisel Ramos' (accessed 2 September 2009).
[7] This calculation is based on the chart 'Body Mass Index (BMI) for Adults' (accessed 3 September 2009).
[8] 'French fashion industry signs anti-anorexia charter', Sydney Morning Herald, 9 April 2008 (accessed 2 September 2009).
[9] Laura Collins, 'Pixel Perfect: Pascal Dangin’s Virtual Reality', The New Yorker, 12 May 2008 (accessed 2 September 2009).