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I Feel Pretty
May. 15th, 2018 07:47 amI was of two minds about I Feel Pretty before I went to see it, because I was afraid that it was going to dish up some bilgewater theme like “All women are beautiful!”, which I feel is exactly as ludicrous as insisting “All women are tall!” or “All women are Olympic athletes!” All these statements are untrue, and insisting as a matter of dogma that “all women are beautiful” just draws the link between women’s worth and their physical appearance ever tighter. What’s so terrible about the idea that a woman might not be beautiful? Would she be worthless?
Insisting that women have to believe that they’re beautiful is an attempt to turn a societal problem, the fact that our society often acts as if yes indeed, an ugly woman is worthless, into an individual one: women are so insecure about their appearance! It’s so much easier to tell women to repeat “I am beautiful” as a mantra than to actually dismantle the social structures that make women’s insecurity about their personal appearance perfectly reasonable.
But in the event this is not exactly what I Feel Pretty is going for. Renee Bennett (Amy Schumer) falls into the category that one might call “pretty enough for all ordinary purposes” (pace Thornton Wilder), but all she can see is that she’s not as beautiful as the women featured in the fashion magazine she runs the website for, Lily LeClair. She dreams of becoming the receptionist in the main office, but she can’t even bring herself to apply because she thinks she’s not pretty enough for the job.
But then (inspired by the movie Big), Renee makes a wish to be beautiful - and the next day, after she hits her head during a Soul Cycle class, she believes that her wish has come true. She applies for the job! She asks out a guy! She shares her insights with the company’s CEO, Avery LeClair, the founder’s beautiful granddaughter who struggles with insecurity about her intelligence and her high-pitched voice (she has one of those itty-bitty baby voices that movies often use to signal stupidity in female characters), and swiftly becomes her right-hand woman on the company’s new diffusion line.
And yet not only has her appearance not changed; other people’s perceptions of her appearance haven’t changed either. Her confidence doesn’t make her a gorgeous supermodel. She was right that under normal circumstances she wouldn't have had a chance at that reception job at Lily LeClair - but the company is trying to make its image more accessible to sell its diffusion line, so they decide to take a chance on her.
My favorite scene is the one where Renee, flush with her belief that she’s supermodel hot, impulsively enters a bikini contest in a bar. Her date is horrified - a fat girl who isn't even wearing a bikini in a bikini contest? She’s going to get slaughtered! - but in fact she wins over the whole bar with her vivacity and spirit. She doesn’t win the contest, but she does win the admiration of the bar owner, who comments to her date (a little more tactfully than this), hey, she might not be as hot as the other girls in the contest, but “That’s the kind of girl you’d want beside you if you blow out a tire.”
Her belief in her own beauty doesn’t make her beautiful (except to the people who love her). But who cares? Confidence, spirit, intelligence, the ability to honestly speak one’s mind - these are all lovable qualities in their own right. Why should she have to be beautiful too?
Insisting that women have to believe that they’re beautiful is an attempt to turn a societal problem, the fact that our society often acts as if yes indeed, an ugly woman is worthless, into an individual one: women are so insecure about their appearance! It’s so much easier to tell women to repeat “I am beautiful” as a mantra than to actually dismantle the social structures that make women’s insecurity about their personal appearance perfectly reasonable.
But in the event this is not exactly what I Feel Pretty is going for. Renee Bennett (Amy Schumer) falls into the category that one might call “pretty enough for all ordinary purposes” (pace Thornton Wilder), but all she can see is that she’s not as beautiful as the women featured in the fashion magazine she runs the website for, Lily LeClair. She dreams of becoming the receptionist in the main office, but she can’t even bring herself to apply because she thinks she’s not pretty enough for the job.
But then (inspired by the movie Big), Renee makes a wish to be beautiful - and the next day, after she hits her head during a Soul Cycle class, she believes that her wish has come true. She applies for the job! She asks out a guy! She shares her insights with the company’s CEO, Avery LeClair, the founder’s beautiful granddaughter who struggles with insecurity about her intelligence and her high-pitched voice (she has one of those itty-bitty baby voices that movies often use to signal stupidity in female characters), and swiftly becomes her right-hand woman on the company’s new diffusion line.
And yet not only has her appearance not changed; other people’s perceptions of her appearance haven’t changed either. Her confidence doesn’t make her a gorgeous supermodel. She was right that under normal circumstances she wouldn't have had a chance at that reception job at Lily LeClair - but the company is trying to make its image more accessible to sell its diffusion line, so they decide to take a chance on her.
My favorite scene is the one where Renee, flush with her belief that she’s supermodel hot, impulsively enters a bikini contest in a bar. Her date is horrified - a fat girl who isn't even wearing a bikini in a bikini contest? She’s going to get slaughtered! - but in fact she wins over the whole bar with her vivacity and spirit. She doesn’t win the contest, but she does win the admiration of the bar owner, who comments to her date (a little more tactfully than this), hey, she might not be as hot as the other girls in the contest, but “That’s the kind of girl you’d want beside you if you blow out a tire.”
Her belief in her own beauty doesn’t make her beautiful (except to the people who love her). But who cares? Confidence, spirit, intelligence, the ability to honestly speak one’s mind - these are all lovable qualities in their own right. Why should she have to be beautiful too?
