I Feel Pretty

[osprey_archer]

I 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?

Comments

[asakiyume]

So really, rather than being about the importance of beauty, it's about the importance of self-confidence, but it acts on the (not incorrect) assumption that for most women, self-confidence is connected to a sense of comfort around how they look.

Now all we need is for women to feel comfortable about how they look without believing they're supermodels--which I think is very possible.

Searching for more information about the Thornton Wilder quote (which made me smile, and which I did confirm came from Our Town), I discovered that it must have been a thing that people said more widely, which he simply put into his play the way you might put a line like "He's as dumb as a bag of hammers" in a play: Here it appears in volumes 2 and 3 of The Shepherd's Journal, published in 1909, when Thornton Wilder would have been 12:

The same thing is true of the Cotswold, and whilst a half bred Kara-Shrop, obtained by the crossing the Karakule Ram with the Shropshire ewe, results in a skin that is pretty enough for all ordinary purposes....

[osprey_archer]

Yes. The movie's not saying that beauty is totally without importance, because beauty (like self-confidence or intelligence or athletic talent or any other quality) will open doors for you, but if you don't have it, then it's not the end of the world.

It's so interesting that "pretty enough for all ordinary purposes" used to be a saying in wide use. Possibly it's a phrase ripe for revival? It sets a more attainable standard than beautiful, at least. And even though I'd like to see physical appearance get less obsessive emphasis, I know that concern about it is never going to go away. It's not like men don't worry about their looks, too.

[asakiyume]

I'd say definitely ripe for revival!

[kore]

I think that's the concept of 'jolie laide' -- the first time I saw Truly Madly Deeply I didn't think Juliet Stevenson was conventionally pretty at all, but she had such vivacity and magnetism I couldn't take my eyes off her.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, that's pretty much exactly the bikini contest scene. The people in the bar decide, she may not be conventionally bikini-beautiful, but gosh is she fun to watch!

[sovay]

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.

That sounds charming and warming and I'm glad to hear it; the trailers looked relatively dire.

[osprey_archer]

I've noticed that a lot of trailers are totally misleading, often in a way that makes the movie look way worse than it is. (Like the trailers I saw for All About Eve.) It says something sad about what Hollywood thinks we the public want.

[ladyherenya]

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?

Every so often I see things on Tumblr which set me thinking about this. I can understand the value in redefining what is considered beautiful but it still feels like pressure to judge myself -- and by judged -- on my appearance. I found more comfort in the ending of an article (I can't remember now what the article itself was about) which concluded along the lines of "Do you have a body? Great, let's leave it at that."

[osprey_archer]

I think redefining beauty can be an important part of loosening the link between women's worth and our appearance... but it can never be the only part or we're just going to end up with a different set of beauty standards to judge ourselves against.