Hannah Montana said it herself in her 2006 pop-hit “Nobody’s Perfect,” yet why are those of female gender striving to achieve this unobtainable idea of perfection? If you look around, all you see are ideas of perfection—billboards of lanky girls wearing skimpy bikinis, highly advertised pageants and fashion shows, and even television shows where young children are transformed into phony creatures by using pounds of makeup and faux tanning sprays in order to emulate what their mothers think is beautiful. Back in 2004, Dove put out a study entitled “The Real Truth About Beauty” in order to shine light on the unrealistic beauty standards of society in the United States. Also, they hoped to provoke a change so the women of today will stop considering these farfetched ideals as possible. The standards of beauty must be broadened because currently the media, specifically music videos and television shows, are replete with low-self esteem propaganda which encourages superficiality and damages female’s self-image.
   

Youtube is one of the most used websites on the internet hitting over a billion users per year and available in over seventy countries. Music videos are by far the most popular type of video watched coming at a whopping trillion views. While watching videos made in the twenty first century, it becomes apparent that these video are very pleasing to the eye. Maybe it is the exquisite lighting effects, breathtaking costuming and backdrops, or maybe it is the hundred-twenty pound, blonde hair, bright eyed, olive colored skin five foot six girl dancing front in center where everybody's eyes immediately draw to. Being a music fanatic, there is not one video that I could put my finger on that has these women that others are envious of, instead there are millions. Just take a look at MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This music video. This video came out in 1996, yet still had the same idea of a tall, scrawny beauty wearing nothing but a top that a typical woman would wear under their clothing and shorts that rise up to the edge of their buttocks. Sad thing is, this stereotypical dancer that performs in MC Hammer’s music video seems to re-appear in more current artist’s videos like Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, Wiz Khalifa, and many more like it is some kind of magic trick. Now one would think that artists who are go completely against the standards would break out of this trite beauty barrier, but that is not the case. For example, Lady Gaga wears the most outrageous outfits on the red carpet to showcase her individuality and go against the idea that “sex sells,” yet all her dancers are long haired, appealing, young girls. Ms. Gaga once said in a tweet which was broadcasted to her 53.2 million followers “ This is who I am. I am proud at any size. And I love you and want you to be proud in any form you may take as well.” Thinking about this logically, how can the same girl watching Gaga’s videos, that is filled with skinny beauties, possibly feel okay about her self-image if her idol and her dancers fit into the category of the hollywood standard of beauty which every teenager strives to be. On the other hand, for the first time in music video history newly pop sensation, Meghan Trainor, took these artificial matters into her own hands. Trainor grew up as an un-proportional girl with thin, greasy hair and cheeks that her grandmother just wanted to pinch all day. These physical characteristics aided in her long time history of bullying. Once the spotlight was on her, she knew it was her place to get a long term thought of hers into the media. After her single “All About that Base” ranked number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 for eight weeks in a row, Trainor put out a music video showcasing dancers of all different body types and ethnicities. This was finally a music video that all girls could watch that flaunts the idea of going against the typical beauty standards that are engrained in these poor girls minds and instead being content with one’s body and beauty. Now this whole paragraph is about how other people perceive these dancers in the music videos, but what must be taken under consideration is the sanity of the dancers themselves. According to businessinsider.com, being a dancer is ranked the eleventh most stressful job in the world due to the mental and physical effects. Ever wonder how the producers get these so-called “beauties” in the videos? Dancers go through a long and grueling process just to get the job. It all starts off with a simple casting call. Since it is illegal to specifically say “I want a black dancer, a skinny dancer, a midget dancer, etc,” producers must post notices asking for all types. Being in the dance world and having much experience it started to become second nature to realize when a producer is asking for a specific trait. Just the other day I was looking at a local website which posts auditions in my area and the audition I was interested in was looking for girls whose body was “proportional height and weight,” otherwise known as the paper-thin skinny girls seen in basically every music video. Now once a dancer gets to the audition they can be cut for the littlest thing. Their neck may be to long or they might not be able to fit into the costume, but the producers do not care. All they want is a masterfully made final product. Between the girls watching their idols and the dancers prance around in scanty outfits that showcase their perfectly toned body to the dancers who have to face this physical rejection first hand, it is no wonder why the beauty standard is so narrow and girl’s self-esteem is lowered each and everyday. What must be done is artist should start to follow in the foot steps of Meghan Trainor and provide fans with videos which showcase all different forms of beauty.
    

If you have not been living under a rock during the past five years, you must of heard of the TLC show Toddlers and Tiaras. Each week the show follows around four different girls who are preparing for their favorite day of the week, pageant day. In order to prepare, they must go through backbreaking training on how to perfect the beauty walk and how to wave properly. Once the exhausting training is complete, competition day is on. At the pageant, mothers pay thousands and thousands of dollars to transform their child into a doll looking creature. This process consists of gallons of stiffening hairspray, pounds of cakey makeup, and pints of fake tanning spray. In one instance, four year old Allyson states “I like tanning so I can get brown like Beyoncé.” There are way to many things wrong with this statement, but most importantly why is a four year old passionate about tanning and why is she comparing herself to thirty-four year old super star Beyoncé? The issue with pageants is that children are being taught that in order to be seen as beautiful by others, specifically the judges, they must conceal their innocent child-looking flaws with fake teeth and hair, so that they will be the prettiest and win the big crown. It is an obvious fact that once something is drilled into a person’s head they will always remember it, like me in AP Chemistry. I have learned for several years that as you go across a period on the periodic table the electronegativity increases, and I will probably remember that for the rest of my life. So now what about the girl whose mother keeps telling her that in order to win she must go on a diet, have artificial hair and teeth, and present herself with pounds of makeup on her face; she will probably remember that forever too. The problems with pageants is that it teaches girls at a young age to accept the beauty standards of society and that it is okay to be judged on artificial looks. All though some may argue that pageants build up young girls confidence and allow them to mature at an earlier age, the cons overweigh the pros and overall pageants just teach little girls to pretend to be someone else to obtain admiration by others.
   

If society as a whole continues Meghan Trainors trend of broadening the beauty standards, the self-esteem of girls all over the world will increase dramatically. On the other hand, if society stays stuck in the past by maintaining the idea of having the tall, skinny girl be the center of attention, girls will fall into the trap of destruction leading them to a long life of dissatisfaction with their body and beauty. So you choose. Would you rather continue to admire overly skinny models because you think they are beautiful and remain joyous while laughing at the young girls who are tortured everyday by their mothers to uphold the standard of beauty or would you want to fix the mental and physical health of females all over the world?