I hate chick flicks. There I said it. With the exception of a very few, I would gladly watch an 80’s action movie like Predator over…see I can’t even name one! One caught my eye, however, back in April of this year. Not for the plot per se, but the arguments that surrounded it. I’m talking about the 2018 Amy Schumer film I Feel Pretty.
The premise is actually pretty simple: a self conscious woman hates how she looks and after she hits her head during a spin class, she wakes up feeling like she is the most gorgeous woman on the planet and can do anything. While her appearance never changes, what she sees does and therefore she is able to accomplish things she couldn’t before.
I Feel Pretty sounds like a pretty cute movie with an awesome performance by Michelle Williams, but boy did it piss some people off. The biggest hooplah was around Amy Schumer herself. Granted, I’m not her biggest fan in any regards but the idea that an average sized woman can’t deal with body image issues is the biggest pile of horse manure I’ve heard all day. You can be fat, thin, short, tall…hell, even people are insecure about their hair. No one has the right to dictate who is or isn’t insecure. Loving someone else is easy, loving yourself is one of the hardest lessons people can learn.
I’m not excluded in that. That is a lesson I have been fighting to learn my entire life. Over three decades later and I still need to remind myself constantly that I’m enough and I can’t count the number of times my insecurities have kept me from accomplishing something I really wanted. Why am I writing this? We live in a world that judges everything…how you look, how you talk, where you’re from, what you believe, how you dress, even what music you listen to can get people riled up and it’s a constant watchful eye. People are so distracted with finding things to be angry about that we just walk around mad, vibrating bundles of energy all day long just waiting for something to cross our paths so we can finally release it.
And the requirements for beauty in this day and age are just outrageous. Very few people in this world meet those requirements and this isn’t just for women. Men face self hatred and a fight to look the way they are “supposed” to every day. You wouldn’t believe how vile some comments from women are about men, about things they can’t truly help. And it’s heartbreaking how we treat each other. Everyone has the right to be happy with themselves without having to confirm it with anyone or ask permission to be happy. You can weigh 100lbs and love yourself, you can weigh 300lbs and love yourself and you don’t need anyone’s approval to do so.
I want to live in a world where everyone can feel the way that Amy Schumer felt after her head injury in I Feel Pretty. I want to live in a world where people strut down the street like they’re on a damn catwalk and head into the day happy, confident and able to look themselves in the eye in the mirror; where the confidence is contagious. Maybe if we’re finally happy with ourselves we can be happy with each other. Or maybe I’m just too hopeful, but isn’t that a better way to be?
While I Feel Pretty isn’t an Oscar-worthy movie, it’s fun. It made me wish I could feel that way. It’s motivating and it left me feeling happy like maybe I could feel that way too, just as I am. This was a hard movie to watch at times because it made me really think about what I see when I look into the mirror and who I let make me feel that way. For a chick-flick, this makes you think about how you view yourself. Who knows, maybe true self confidence is only a spin-class accident away. Love yourself everyone, because it is the only true step towards loving each other.
