True Beauty

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"
 "Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." ~ Confucius
"Beauty comes as much from the mind as from the eye." ~Grey Livingston
"Do I love you because you're beautiful,
Or are you beautiful because I love you?"~Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Cinderella

Recently I had an occasion to speak with a young girl who had an experience where someone in authority at her school implied that she was fat. When she shared her story with me, I was appalled that anyone would say something like that, let alone someone in authority. She was highly insulted and rightfully so. I remember years ago going to see a High School production of "The Music Man" The student actress cast as Eulalie was not a size 2. She was big girl, but extremely talented. If you know the show, you know that Eulalie's character description in no way lists that she is to be overweight. That's not a defining part of her character. However, this director had chosen to use this girl's size as the running site gag, and several references were made during the show, references that are not in the script, to her size to get a cheap laugh. I remember leaving and thinking how sad it was that 1. the director had put this impressionable young girl in this very demeaning situation, and 2. that she felt she had to go along with it. Now, most of my life I have been a "Big" girl. And most of my life I have been acting. I have never been asked to put myself in a situation that used my size to solicit laughter. All of my colleagues in theatre have always treated me with respect. My friends, my co-workers, see past my size to what makes me beautiful, the person I am inside.
Why are we, as a society, so down on people who are larger? And larger compared to what? Who set this tiny size as the norm, no, the standard? I am not going to get on a soapbox about the media, so don't worry, but I will say this. The images we are bombarded with every day 24/7 are near impossible to be like. Yet there they are. You need to be pretty in life to get what you want. You need to be tiny to be beautiful. If it isn't that way, why are we spending so much money in this country trying to turn ourselves into these air-brushed, touched-up images? Please don't think that this is a blog about bashing people who are smaller. It's not.

Emme - One of the first Plus Size Models

The real issue here is RESPECT. Respect for others and respect for self. People come in all shapes and sizes. Their size and shape is not who they are. If we all had the gift to see from the inside out, what a different world it would be.