SCORE one for girl power. A 14-year-old US ballet dancer has taken on a major magazine over its distortion of female body shapes, and won.
The young activist, Julia Bluhm, led a crusade against altered photos in Seventeen magazine now has a promise from top editor Ann Shoket to leave body shapes alone, reserving Photoshop for the stray hair, clothing wrinkle, errant bra strap or zit. Read more
“We are all beautiful in our own way . . .” this teen stated in a recent interview on the CBS This Morning show.
WOW!
I am not sure but did that leave anyone out?
I understand that the human body is basically the same whether you shift from male to female or vice versa or whether you analyze someone in Australia or Russia or Africa or Bolivia. But, to say that we are all beautiful in our own way allows for latitudes that just are not accurate.
Here is the online dictionary definition of the word beautiful
beau·ti·ful adj.
1. Having qualities that delight the senses, especially the sense of sight.
2. Excellent; wonderful.
beau
beau ti·ful·ness n.
Synonyms: beautiful, lovely, pretty, handsome, comely, fair
All these adjectives apply to what excites aesthetic admiration. Beautiful is most comprehensive: a beautiful child; a beautiful painting; a beautiful mathematical proof.
Lovely applies to what inspires emotion rather than intellectual appreciation: "They were lovely, your eyes" (George Seferis).
What is pretty is beautiful in a delicate or graceful way: a pretty face; a pretty song; a pretty room.
Handsome stresses poise and dignity of form and proportion: a very large, handsome paneled library. "She is very pretty, but not so extraordinarily handsome" (William Makepeace Thackeray).
Comely suggests wholesome physical attractiveness: "Mrs. Hurd is a large woman with a big, comely, simple face" (Ernest Hemingway).
What is pretty is beautiful in a delicate or graceful way: a pretty face; a pretty song; a pretty room.
Handsome stresses poise and dignity of form and proportion: a very large, handsome paneled library. "She is very pretty, but not so extraordinarily handsome" (William Makepeace Thackeray).
Comely suggests wholesome physical attractiveness: "Mrs. Hurd is a large woman with a big, comely, simple face" (Ernest Hemingway).
Fair emphasizes freshness or purity: "In the highlands, in the country places,/Where the old plain men have rosy faces,/And the young fair maidens/Quiet eyes" (Robert Louis Stevenson).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Perhaps I am being too picky one might say and perhaps I am but that still does not negate the fact that “people” distort the English language whether their intent is to do so or not; and, it still does not negate the fact that not everyone can win a “prize.”
I think that it is wonderful that a teenage girl took on a national magazine and won and I anxiously await her next attack when she discovers something does not suit her tastes; but, this is America after all and we are simply brilliant at the art of DECEPTION that manipulates almost an entire population into thinking they can be something that they cannot nor never will become, other than an illusion or fantasy in an afternoon dream.
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