Who tells young girls that their looks matter? That’s a trick question with a really easy answer: everyone. The idea that it’s what’s outside that counts is repeated absolutely everywhere – in TikTok videos that call 29-year-olds “old”, on neon skincare packaging that appeals to primary schoolers, and in ostensibly feminist films.
Who tells young girls that their looks don’t matter? I’m not sure. One year before I was born, Disney released Beauty and the Beast, which taught my generation that appearances aren’t everything. This aphorism was then repeated in popular culture so often – most notably in 1996’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 2001’s Shrek, and 2006’s Ugly Betty – that sure, it became trite. But I much prefer it to the message it’s been replaced with. Namely: “It feels good to make yourself look good, and that is good.”
Celebrities say that anti-ageing injectables are “empowering”, and can make you “the best, most authentic version” of yourself. Headlines sincerely claim that “Botox is feminist” while decrying “plastic surgery shaming”. Cartoon princesses have become more diverse in their desires and dress sizes since I was a kid, sure, but Disney now launches tie-in skincare ranges for its latest films. The Inside Out 2 x Bubble Skincare “3-Step Barrier Boost Routine” promises to “keep your skin (and mind) balanced and ready for anything.”
Much of this is a course-correction, an attempt to defy the sneers of men who have for centuries viewed those who partake in beauty practices as frivolous and shallow (while simultaneously freaking out if we don’t conceal our under-eyes). Make-up and skincare can be a hobby as much as any other, and many nail artists are indeed artists. But I’m still troubled by the messages our youth are – and more specifically, now aren’t – consuming.
I think the best way to explain what I’m concerned about is to compare the film Little Women (1994) with Little Women (2019), (don’t worry, I will come to the book). In the earlier version I adored in adolescence, Meg March returns from a ball after being dolled up by her peers and wrestles with the fact she enjoyed being admired. Her gentle mother Marmee tells her that’s completely understandable, but then adds a warning: “If you feel your value lies in being merely decorative, I fear that someday you might find yourself believing that’s all that you really are.”
In Greta Gerwig’s 2019 remake, Marmee makes no such speech. Instead, she uses the new aphorism du jour, telling Meg before the ball: “Just be who you are.” Then she gives her some jewellery and adds: “Pretty things should be enjoyed.”
Now, you might say, so what? No one is going to watch the (masterful!) 2019 version thinking its message is “be hot”. And neither film is true to the 1868 novel, in which Marmee did indeed say that it was natural to enjoy being admired, before warning that one shouldn’t do “foolish or unmaidenly things” and must be “modest as well as pretty.” But while we can see how regressive this message is 150 or so years later, it scares me that Marmee’s 1994 speech is now just as outdated. Because, as she also told Meg: “Time erodes all such beauty. But what it cannot diminish is the wonderful workings of your mind.”
This sentiment, I think, is now very taboo. A few years ago, a young women posted a video to TikTok, offering similar advice to 1994 Marmee. “We place way too much emphasis on looks when it comes to building confidence,” the user @glamdemon2004 said in a viral, now-deleted video, “Some of you guys have not read a book in years, don’t know how to do your taxes, have no sense of identity outside of the internet and can’t speak in public, and yet every morning, there you are looking at yourself in your full-length Ikea mirror going, ‘You’re so hot, you’re the prettiest girl in the world.’” Many people responded angrily to this video and accused the creator of misogyny, racism and classism.
It might be reductive to swap “beauty” for “reading” as a measure your self-worth (although I don’t believe the creator was being that literal). And yet 1994 Marmee wasn’t referring to bookishness, but: “Your humour, your kindness and your moral courage.” We live in a world where self-care and skincare have becoming synonymous, even though studies have found that helping others improves wellbeing more than helping oneself. All I am really trying to say is what Marmee said best: you have value outside of looking good.
This message can’t compete with $145m budget films. Last year, another Greta Gerwig offering, the supposedly feminist Barbie, peddled more beautiful nonsense. Our protagonist leaves Barbieland for the real world and encounters and old woman with imperfect human skin for the very first time. Barbie turns to her and smiles, a tear on her cheek. “You’re so beautiful,” she says. “I know it!” the woman replies. This is ostensibly radical and powerful because the woman has wrinkles. And yet even if Barbie thinks wrinkles are beautiful, she’s still upholding the idea that “beautiful” is a thing that all women should want to be. Others have interpreted the scene differently, as an example of the “It’s what’s inside that counts!” message that I feel is missing from modern media. But we have no idea what’s inside this woman: she could be a total bitch.
What if Barbie had reacted with horror and disgust upon seeing anything other than plastic skin, in a learning moment? What if the woman hadn’t had a sparkly headband and hooped earrings, neatly combed hair and pink lips? What if she was a mess? What if Barbie had called her ugly and the woman had replied: “So what?” That would never have happened, because then – as beauty critic Jessica DeFino has adeptly noted – Mattel Films wouldn’t profit from a “Barbie™ The Movie Glow Jelly Face Mask” which promises to “destroy signs of aging” and provide “plump, luminous skin.”
Thanks to products like this, Marmee’s 1994 speech is now factually incorrect. Time no longer erodes all such beauty: 68-year-old celebrities have the skin of women six decades their junior. In this environment, with these messages, how can you convince a girl that looks don’t matter most? The media now tells us it feels good to be beautiful, it is morally good (ie empowering, and “true to yourself”) to be beautiful, and you can be beautiful forever. The trouble, of course, is that all these messages are lies. Lies peddled to make someone else rich.
I’ve spoken with teenagers who have had Botox aged 18, and those who had lip fillers injected, dissolved and then injected again. They have spent hundreds of pounds and endured pain only to remain dissatisfied. One young woman admitted to me: “I got the work done thinking, ‘Oh, this will make me feel prettier’ and it never did.” In 2023, the law firm Medical Accident Group found that 65% of people surveyed regretted their cosmetic surgery, mostly commonly because, “The results didn’t match the image of how I thought I’d look.”
Of course, it can feel good to make yourself look good, and perhaps some people’s wellbeing has been drastically improved by plastic surgery. But I want young people to question who benefits the most from this idea. Is it really your mental health? Or is it the same doll-making, beauty-standards-peddling, multinational, multibillion-dollar corporations that made you feel bad about yourself in the first place?
I’ve noticed even among my own friends that if such-and-such celebrity gets some plastic surgery, people will say things like, “As long as it made her happy, fair enough.” But happiness can’t be injected with filler or inserted with an implant. That’s why people always go back for more. Somehow we’re not allowed to retort, “It won’t make her happy!” because we’ve been sold the idea that it will. We have accepted marketing messages as moral truths.
“If you feel your value lies in being merely decorative, I fear that someday you might find yourself believing that’s all that you really are.” Who is telling girls this today? Not Marmee, not Barbie. I want to scream it; I want to tattoo it on my forehead. I worry so much about the absence of this message because even I often forget it. Why shouldn’t I spend thousands of pounds to fix the aesthetic flaws I perceive in my teeth/arms/stomach/cheeks? Why would that be a bad thing? Why wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing to do with my time? I forget.
My answer isn’t just that I am more than decorative (I’m being sincere if very annoying when I say my absolute favourite part of my body is my writer’s bump). It’s that I’ve now come to believe our faces are not merely our own. They are part of a collective – we have a collective face. If you change yours, it has a knock-on effect. It makes other people feel bad about the features they have that you got rid of. It normalises expensive and invasive procedures and acids. It stigmatises aging. It says, over and over and over again: it’s what’s outside that counts.
Does that make you feel bad? Does it sound illiberal and wrong? Of course you can do what you want with your face – I’m not going to stop you. But I don’t want it to be taboo to suggest that our supposedly individual personal choices are the result of millions in marketing spend. I don’t want it to be taboo to say it’s what’s inside that counts. We must be able to say to young girls that looks aren’t everything, and mean it. Because everyone else is telling them that they are.
[See also: “Britishcore” is no substitute for national identity]
Content from our partners
Related
