Monday, July 21, 2008

The "art" of Perfection

We are all guilty of it.
No matter who we are or what our likes and dislikes are; we all spent Sunday mornings as idly as possible. We read the Sunday paper, and soak up the leisurely morning as we sip our coffee. We lounge around in our pajamas, putting off the day until the last possible second.
Perhaps it is our refusal to admit that Monday morning is less than 24 hours away that makes us reluctant to start the day.
Still, I must confess to my own tendency to laze around on a Sunday morning/afternoon. For me, the day usually entails becoming captivated by some sub par movie that I cannot seem to turn away from. Yesterday, I still found myself glued to the television, but not as a means to watch a movie. Instead, with the remote in the hands of my sister, I watched Entertainment's Best and Worst Beach Bodies.
As I sat eating less than healthy food, I was subjected to looking at Eva Longoria's perfect "beach body" and feeling less than perfect. However, I still did not find that as grounds for ceasing my viewing activities.
It was only when the show discussed Leonardo DiCaprio's less than desirable beach body that I took my leave from the couch.
No, this was not because I'm a closet Leo fan and couldn't stand hearing anything negative about him...although, I did have a huge crush on him in Titanic. The reason why the show suddenly became overwhelming distasteful was that the show's host acknowledged Leo's perfect face in the same sentence as she condemned his body.
Has our society become so obsessed with perfection that having a beautiful face is no longer enough to be considered attractive? I do not care what anyone says; that man is beautiful. Still, being beautiful is not enough.
Now, we have to be beautiful with rock hard abs, perfectly sculpted arms, shapely legs, and perky breasts. Perfection has to be all-round, not just in one's face.
Of course, it's important to have a healthy body and stay in shape, but a person does not need a perfect body to be healthy. In fact, many of those undesirable people in Hollywood are actually in a healthy state of body, but because they do not fit into the mold our current culture has cast for them, they are categorized has having the "worst beach body".
The scariest part to this is: what about the rest of us. The majority of people in this country and this world are not as polished looking as those in Hollywood. Are we all to consider ourselves as undesirable as those less than perfect celebrities? Or will we realize that those standards are not realistic for human beings?
Shouldn't we be more drawn to the faces that do not look as if they have been sculpted by a plastic surgeon, because we know that it is real and that usually the person behind that face is real as well?
Unfortunately, we have seemed to stop caring about what is real and become obsessed with what is fantastically perfect.

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