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In Your Face ~ How celebrities and ordinary people use cosmetic medicine, in Orange County and elsewhere.

Memo to Jessica Simpson: Please show us true beauty

June 30th, 2009, 6:00 am · 2 Comments · posted by Colin Stewart


Jessica SimpsonSee ‘JESSICA SIMPSON’S BEAUTY’ slide show


jessica-simpson-082805-in-miami

Photo: Jessica Simpson in 2005 in Miami. (AP photo)

MEMO TO JESSICA SIMPSON

Next month, you’ve announced that you will start shooting a reality TV series that you call a search for “true beauty.” Possibly that will turn out to be true, but early signs are that your “Price of Beauty” shows will gawk at various cultures’ ideals of physical beauty without challenging our own.

In the press release announcing the show, you say, “I have always believed that beauty comes from within and confidence will always make a woman beautiful,” but your show on VH1 seems to be heading in other directions.

There’s no mention of problems related to women’s and men’s body images. These range from eating disorders to some people’s  inclination to undergo repeated plastic surgeries that make them less attractive. As a prominent singer/actress, you yourself have had Restylane injected into your lips, but hated the results. You have been the subject of rumors that you had breast implants and other plastic surgery, although you deny it.

A show called “The Price of Beauty” would be a good place to explore issues raised by the YWCA in its “Beauty at Any Cost” report last year:

  • Low self-esteem and unhealthy competition between girls over their looks.
  • Appearance-based job discrimination.
  • Risks posed by smoking as a way to remain slim.

Many of those problems result from people acting on beliefs that are totally opposed to your statement that “beauty comes from within and confidence will always make a woman beautiful.”

When the series launches on VH1 next year, I hope you will show us people’s inner beauty and the beauty that comes from a woman’s self-confidence, but so far that’s not how it’s described. Instead, you say you plan to:

  • Study local fashions, dietary fads and beauty regimes.
  • Participate in some of the extreme practices you discover.
  • Interview other countries’ pop-culture icons on their own quests for beauty.

Please don’t do only those things.  Since you know what real beauty is, please show it to us.

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