Models Are People Too

After watching the Ted Talk “Looks Aren’t Everything, Believe Me, I’m a model”, by Cameron Russell, my perspective on body image and appearance was complete led flipped around. This particular speech aims at portraying the reality and severity of the daily life of what our society considers a “model”. Cameron strongly begins her talk by entering the stage in a tight short black dress with tall heels and then quickly changes into a less revealing, and less appealing long floral skirt and large sweater. Right off the bat the audience is able to see just how looks can be the make or break it of a person’s appearance.  Cameron then goes on to explain how so-called privlaged she was to happen to win the “genetic lottery”. Moreover, she adds an excellent comparison by saying that when young girls say they want to be a model it’s just as similar as when someone says, “I want to win the lottery”. You don’t get to choose that, it just happen to some individuals rather than other.

            Cameron further develops her speech into the description of today’s media and how the images we may see throughout ads; commercials, newspapers, and magazine are certainly not what they are made out to be. The pictures are false, she explains. She even admits that she is completely the opposite of what photos of her portray her as.

Throughout her Ted Talk I realize I am completely interested in this topic because of how I was never before able to see this side of it. When we see these outcomes, for example, a magazine, we don’t consider the background of that individual posing awkwardly to attempt to look “sexy”. We don’t bother to understand their story or even their own views on this topic, and that’s why this particularly stuck out to me.

As the speech continues, Cameron also includes a very interesting point where she discusses questions that she is sometimes asks and how she answers them. One that stuck out to me personally is when the young girls would tell her that they wanted to become models when they grew up and she answers “why?!” so concerned. It’s relieving how she responds that you can literally be anything in the world that you want to be and out of that you think you want to be a model?? She then transforms her argument into that after awhile the attention and focus on her appearance becomes exhausting. She admits that beauty isn’t everything because she doesn’t want to just be noticed as a “pretty girl” because girls who look similar are so much deeper than that.

This especially is what made me reflect on this video and consider the ways in which we dehumanize individuals like this and rarely give them the respect they deserve. Models are human too, and I believe we, as a society should start acting like it.