China Dolls

There are some expressions that seem to float timelessly and effortlessly through society. One of these is, “pretty as a china doll.” Recently we’ve had to stop, however, and ask ourselves, “Just what does that really mean?”

The Chinese government pulled a bizarre switcheroo at their opening ceremony at the Olympics and put one beautiful little girl’s voice onto another beautiful little girl’s body, somehow negating both children in the process. Obviously, a boatload of attention and support has been given to the “ugly duckling” (Yang Peiyi), who was actually as sweet and imperfectly adorable as 7-year olds ever are. But the other side of the coin – the other little girl (Lin Miaoke) – is really just as victimized.

Although she may have been chosen as “the pretty one,” beautiful little Lin Miaoke has been completely invalidated as anything but a pretty face. She is a cardboard cutout – a mask. She is not real. And to make matters worse, if you really look at this situation, she literally has no voice. Now, it’s no surprise that we stand here on our side of the world in strong judgment of this ”switcheroo” – and we should – but at what point do we point that finger back at ourselves?

The internet, the pulse of today’s society, is ripe with criticism. One blogger on TotalHealth.com (The Weighting Game with Leslie) expressed her outrage for the hidden Peiyi like this:

That's what happened with Peiyi. She was erased, pushed aside for a sanitized version of what China thinks a little girl should look like.

Another blogger, Lindsay Weiss, on Parent Center Momformation said:

Are you kidding me? What isn’t adorable about a little girl with crooked teeth, chubby cheeks, and a voice of an angel? This girl reportedly said she didn’t mind singing in the wings and that it was a honor to sing for her country. God bless her…but what kind of message does that send to her? … Please. I’m disgusted.

Yes, we all jump to our feet in outrage and harsh criticism of this bait and switch by the Chinese government, and the horrible treatment of a very normal looking little girl. But we have to admit that we are just as guilty of masks, disguises and deceptions of beauty. In fact, we airbrush even our most beautiful models and actresses, and then ridicule people like Jennifer Love Hewitt for being a size two. Every single day, we are complicit in the same kind of Olympic-sized fraud. We define beauty in more and more narrow terms. Over the last few decades, the line between pretty and ugly has become so thin that our girls are literally dieing to cross it.

Rather than stand in judgment of anyone, perhaps we need to step back and look at ourselves. Maybe we need to ask if we, as a society, have set the bar to beautiful so high that we have ostracized almost everyone. Maybe what we need to be outraged by is the crazy message that we are never, ever enough.

Let’s take a minute and really digest and mediate on the old adage: Beauty is only skin deep.

To all of my readers, I have an inspiration to offer you: Be healthy. Be fit. Be more than the skin you’re in. You are absolutely awesome and beautiful just as you are, right now.

To your health, Laura Fenamore, CPCC, Body Image Mastery Mentor
http://www.laurafenamore.com/

Copyedited by Mary Agnes Antonopoulos, www.RockawayWriter.com