In whose image - part 1
We live in world obsessed with image and how we look. Turn on the TV and flick through the channels and what do you see? Adverts for product after product claiming to knock years of how old you look, create eyelashes which will lure in whoever you’ve got your sight on or have hair that shines like a diamond. From night serums to day creams to eye gels, lip scrubs, body moisturisers, skin polishers, hand creams, firming lotions, cleansers and cellulite busters; you name it, there's a product that will make you look amazing! Or walk through your local supermarket and cast your eye over the over the magazines and you’ll see strap lines like, “170 ways to get a beautiful beach body”, “4 weeks to summer legs”, “Your best shape ever – trim fat and muscle in days”.
We’re obsessed with looking our best, changing how look and commenting on how others look. Delve deeper into those magazines and you’ll see page after page passing judgement on celebrities and how they look - who lost weight and who’s gained more than they wanted or who got their red carpet dress just right and who flopped with their beachwear. We can’t escape this obsession.
So how do we as Christian women live distinctively in a world obsessed with image? Before we explore this issue I want to say from the outset I don’t think there is anything wrong with appreciating beauty and wanting to look our best. We only have to look at the natural world to see that our God is a creative God with a flare for beauty; the magnificent sunsets, the vivid colours of a field of wild flowers, the array of creatures seen on an Africa plain. From the youngest girl parading around in her princess dress to the oldest of us bringing out our favourite perfectly coordinated outfit. We all like to look good, dress up, enjoy beautiful clothes and get complimented on how we look. I think an ability to appreciate beauty and enjoy beautiful things is a God given desire. 1 Timothy 6:17 reminds us that God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
But like all God given desires, they are can fall prey to corruption by sin and I don’t think we have to scratch far under the surface of our society’s obsession with image to see the corruption and then the negative impact this can have on us. As Christians we need to see clearly what this negative effect is and where it comes from so we don’t fall into worldly patterns of thinking.
Recently Dove did an interesting advert as part of their campaign for real beauty. In it they hired a criminal sketch artist to draw women as they see themselves and as others see them. The differences in their perceptions are quite interesting.
It’s quite moving isn’t it? And I think the reason why this advert resonates with so many of us is because is exhibits clearly the negative impact our society’s obsession with image can have on us. It shows that many of us are discontent with how we look and have a very skewed perception of our body image.
Do a quick google search of body image or beauty and you see how prevalent this unhappiness is.
One of the first articles I read displayed this image. It is the silhouette test used among psychologists to assess how unhappy a woman is with her shape. The bigger the gap between the shape a woman thinks she is and the shape she’d like to be, the more upset she is about her body. Research shows that the average woman is likely to pick a shape one or two points from reality.
Another site told me that survey in 2010 found that only four percent of women globally consider themselves to be beautiful. While another showed that as young as 6 girls are starting to express concerns about their own weight and shape. Or I found an article on the Glamour magazine which stated that on average, women have 13 negative body thoughts daily—nearly one for every waking hour. I could go on!
And increasingly it is not a uniquely female struggle. Between 2004 and 2005 there was a 90% increase in the number of men reported with eating disorders. I was on the bus last Sunday over hearing a boy of about 8 or 9 chatting to his Mum. After first commenting that Jesus Christ’s dad was Joseph Christ and Joseph Christ was God. He went on to say that when he was grown up he wanted to get married but he didn’t think girls would like him because he was fat. He didn’t even come close to fat but this sparked a 5 min conversation with him and his Mum to-ing and fro-ing about whether he was fat or not.
And I am sure many of us can think of our own personal situations when we have looked in the mirror and not liked the person looking back at us. I wonder how many of us have had moments like this?
As many of us are dissatisfied with how we look we search for ways to help us feel better and validate our physical appearance. One way we do this is by judging and comparing ourselves to others. How does my figure match up with hers? Does she look more or less stylish/cool/effortless than me? Do I look as good as her without having spent the money she clearly has? Essentially we want to make ourselves feel good about how we look. We want to make sure we look as good, if not better than others.
But the problem is it doesn't work. We end up doing one of two things. We compare ourselves to others and come off worse. This leads to us feeling inadequate, envious, insecure and full of self pity. We no longer love ourselves. Or we compare ourselves to others and come off better. This leads to us feeling proud, arrogant and superior and we no longer love those around us. In reality we tend to do both. Each day we look up at others and look down on others, and feel anxious and self-sufficient, guilty and proud, despairing and smug. I know I do this all the time. What we don’t feel, at least for any length of time, is any contentment in how we look. It only serves to feed the sense of dissatisfaction we feel.
So what is behind this sense of dissatisfaction? Why does our image obsessed culture cause this feeling? I think it is because it teaches us two myths.
Firstly, we are dissatisfied with how we look because we believe the myth that there is a one-size fits all mould to beauty. Every day most of us are bombarded with images of models and celebrities with clear skin, pristine white teeth, flat tummies, long legs, smooth frizz-free hair and because adverts are engineered in a particular way we think that is what we should look like. To be beautiful we need to fit that standarised notion of beauty. All the while we forget that these images are simply unattainable to the majority of us.
They are unattainable because we are not physically built in the same way. One analyst reckoned that only 3% of while women had the underlying bone structure required to meet the standards of facial beauty as defined by the fashion industry. Or they are unattainable because we don’t realise how much editing has gone into these images. After the make-up people have done their stuff, and the lighting man has weaved his magic and once the photo has been brushed up with the latest software the final image is not a true reflection of what that woman looks like. Actress Julianne Moore in an interview recalls an actress friend looking at a glossy magazine and wishing she could look more like the person in the photograph. Only when her friend looked closely did she see the image was in fact her.
So part of the reason why we are so dissatisfied with how we look is that we are striving for a goal that doesn’t even exist. It is a figment of good marketing and advertising. In reality the mass beauty ideal is unrealistic and unattainable in real life except by extraordinary means – even by models and actresses themselves. The iconic Pretty Woman poster showing Richard Gere and Julia Roberts standing back to back, it’s not her. Well, not her body anyway. Her head was pasted onto a photograph of an anonymous model! The image was a lie.
So in striving for an unattainable goal it is no wonder we are unhappy with what we see in the mirror. How can I live up to something which doesn’t exist in reality.
Secondly, we are dissatisfied because the myth is that our physical appearance can give us the security, satisfaction and significance we all crave. Everyone wants be loved and accepted. We all want to know that we are worthwhile, that our life is as good as it could be and know that we’ve got all we need in life. So we are always looking for ways to do achieve the acceptance we crave. And the beauty industry plays into that. Think about the advice we read in the glossy magazines. Think about taglines to the adverts we see. Want to find a man – change how you look! Want to do well in the job market – change how you look. Feel unhappy with life – change how you look! What is the underlying message to all this advice? Get the right image, look the right way and then you will be loved and accepted.
We see this clearly illustrated in how we receive compliments or criticisms about who we look. A timely placed compliment can leave us soaring above the clouds while a misplaced word about our outfit can crush us for the rest of the day. Why do these words effect so profoundly? Well, as we are searching for our security, satisfaction and significance in how we look, a compliment is no longer just praise for an outfit. It is an affirmation of who I am as a person. A criticism is no longer just because that haircut doesn’t suit us or because they think we could look better if we wore something different. It is condemnation of who I am as a person.
So fundamentally we have made our image an idol. We think we can achieve the contentment we crave by controlling our image. But the idol of beauty can never make us happy, because in idolising beauty we are being offered hope, but it doesn’t deliver. So we are stuck in an endless cycle of dissatisfaction and loathing for our bodies.
People all around us are profoundly dissatisfied with how they look and are striving for an unattainable goal, thinking that when they reach it they will be secure, satisfied and significant. So what is the solution?
'In whose image' part 2 will be available tomorrow.
