You should know you’re beautiful just the way you are. In the music video for “Scars to Your Beautiful,” Alessia Cara tells us, Meanwhile the people in her music video struggle with body image issues. You are beautiful in every single way (Aguilera, 2002)! You are beautiful no matter that they say! A trim and attractive Christina Aguilera with long blond hair, blue eyes and skin smooth as butter reminds us, To which the pop world would respond, “Well, that is because you are lovely!” with her long blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. I feel lovely just the way that I am (Haze, 2010). So, let’s look at some singers who preach this “love yourself” stuff who do fall into traditional beauty standards. I learn to love myself unconditionally because I am a queen (Arie, 2001)! She had long natural dreads, dark skin, and broad African features. I loved that song! Also, India Arie was herself a person who would not be considered beautiful by pop culture standards. “Pop culture is finally ready to change!” This song didn’t give apologetic platitudes to the tune of “You are beautiful because I said so,” it was talking about beauty in art, giving thanks for your uniqueness, acknowledging beauty myths and choosing to ignore them. The first time I heard India Arie’s song “Video,” I remember exactly where I was, driving through the farm-lands in rural Massachusetts on a summer’s day, and when the first line came on the radio I literally shrieked for joy! “This was it!” I thought.

But when traditionally beautiful people say beauty doesn’t matter, how seriously can we take them?

Slowly, advertising is expanding the beauty norm, but generally speaking, pop culture has not strayed far from it.

Some people theorize that in the Western world being white alone exemplifies beauty (Donella, 2019). I won’t go into an analysis of how beauty standards have developed, but being thin, white, young, wealthy and able-bodied translates to being beautiful. Today, beauty is most often defined as particular physical traits ascribed to societal norms. Who defines beauty, anyway? The Ancient Greeks believed that one could only perceive beauty through the mind, and that beauty forms the base of knowledge and beingness.

India arie songs about beauty