How to overcome a negative self image?

I’ve seen the pictures of Lil Kim posted all over Facebook. Facebook being Facebook comes equipped with a whole bunch of trolls that commented that Lil Kim looked white. Lil Kim has been battling with her self-image for decades, changing her face as frequently as the seasons. She’s also suffered from a tumultuous past and has been involved in many abusive relationships. In this article, I am going to talk about how society creates these negative self-images, and what we can do as women, to stop it.

Minorities tend to have a disadvantage when it comes to beauty.

Virtually all cultures suffer from some form of colorism. People were upset when Nina Davuluri won Miss. America. People from her own culture and race believed that she was too dark to be beautiful. People have said the same thing about Danai Gurira, the co-star and leading lady on the AMC hit television show “The Walking Dead.” Not to mention the fact that there is a great deal of Asian women who are discriminated against because of their darkened, yellow skin.  Of course, there are people like Sammy Sosa and Michael Jackson who have been accused of bleaching their skin. The politics of beauty is not only reserved to colorism. It also branches into body image. For example, people were outraged when plus size model Ashley Graham graced the covers of Sports Illustrated.

The politics of beauty.

Many people fail to understand that the standard of beauty is strictly political. For decades, Caucasian men have determined who is beautiful and who is not.  Hollywood produced white leading ladies such as Sophia Loren, Marylyn Monroe, and Elizabeth Taylor, just to name a few. Later, light skin black women and Latinas were added into this mix. However, the standard of beauty shifted with the Internet. The Internet gave people a voice, and for the first time, communication wasn’t one sided. Hollywood was no longer telling us what beauty was, we were telling them. Sadly, the damage had already been done.

Hollywood shapes our perceptions and influences how we view the world.

Hollywood not only influences our belief system, but also how we view the world. Furthermore, Hollywood creates an ideal sense of beauty that is unattainable. So whenever we look at ourselves, we subconsciously compare ourselves to the beautiful dames on television. We know that we can’t measure up, so we spend a great deal of time feeling sorry for ourselves. This leads women to have a sense of low self-confidence and self-esteem. Many women like Lil Kim, may gravitate to abusive men and suffer from unstable and dysfunctional relationships.

Is Hollywood fully responsible for women having a negative self-image?

Of course not.  In the end, we all have to take responsibility for our lives and how we feel about ourselves. However, it would be nice to see more women who look like us on television. We are starting to see a variety of women, with different shapes and body types.

So what can women do to overcome a negative self-image?

The first thing that we have to understand is that Hollywood isn’t real. It consists of a bunch of fictional characters that are probably miserable in real life.  Just think of Hollywood people as the machines in the Matrix. They have taken over the world and want to suck on your energy. We simply need to wake up, and take responsibility for our own minds and thoughts. So, how do you differentiate your thoughts, from one that is a program? Well, if your thoughts make you miserable. It is probably a program. Just remember, society gets off on making you feel bad about yourself. They need you to feel like shit, because that’s how they make their money.

So what can we do about the whole Lil Kim situation?

There is nothing that we can do for her. We simply need to help ourselves.  We can start by stop giving these people power over us. They have NO right to determine who is beautiful and who is not. We have to define our own beauty, live up to our own standards. Hollywood needs to reflect the visions of the society as a whole, and not just a select few. The Dove campaign as well as the body diverse Barbie are two trends that are shaping how beauty is represented in our country. So it is up to us to keep Hollywood on track.