"Look at me, I will Never pass for a Perfect Bride"

Society has been corrupted in terms of the perception of beauty standards. Humanity has been taught at a very young age about what is respectable . Social media and culture have been a very important influential factor in the game of killing self esteem.

I especially have noticed the effects of Disney on a child's development and perception of beauty. While they may not realize it, several Disney movies set up children for a false ideal of beauty. Starting from the beginning, stories such as Snow White (1937), Cinderella (1950), and Sleeping Beauty (1959), have set up the standard for gender roles. For every little girl watching this movie, they walk away knowing that it's okay to be a damsel in distress and for every little boy, they remember that they will have to battle the big scary monster to rescue the damsel.
The best movie that does, however, contradict the stereotype is Mulan (1998). While it does have its flaws (The song Reflection, despite its inevitable grace, has connotations which imply the beauty standards of China are critical, especially when assessing for a "Perfect Bride"), Mulan is one who breaks the limit of acceptable means to bring a family honor, and does so with impeccable accuracy.

Once these seeds start to create roots in a culture, the people who realize they don't fit the norms quickly learn that nothing they do will help them assimilate. They make assumptions, wrongfully, that there must be something entirely wrong with them. Toni Morrison, a Nobel Prize winning author, claims that "Victims of self loathing" are actually "accepting rejection as legitimate" (The Bluest Eye).  Mostly affected by this hatred are children, racial minorities such as Blacks, and women, who have been experiencing the exclusion from the beginnings of history. The self deprecation becomes so bad that the comments that others make upon an individual are almost better than the comments that an individual makes on themselves.

In recent times, studies have been trying to reveal the disparaging nature of such standards. Dove, for instance, has created a clip that exposes the cruelty of self denigration.

When first watching this clip, I was baffled at the differences in the images, but when reflecting later, I realized that most, if not all of us, including myself, have experienced the same critical and harsh analysis of ourselves, which does not in any sort portray the same image that others see in us.