This little YouTube clip has been shared a great many places before. But I got to thinking about it again the other day...I've been going through one of my periodic "love the contents but hate the package" period, and am trying to break out of it.
I will admit I cried the first couple times I watched this. And I have to explain why. A lot of the women - well in the first 45 seconds of the clip or so - there's more of a similarity between THEIR faces and MY face than anything I've seen on the cover of one of the "women's magazines" since...well...since I can remember. (I don't read the fashion mags any more after deciding they were not helpful to me).

But I look at some of those women and I see rounded, oval faces without prominent cheekbones...and that's like MY face. And I see long, thin noses...and that's like MY nose. And I see heavier eyebrows...and those are like MY brows (even though I have succumbed and now do "shape" them a little. And for the gents...and for the ladies who don't have to do that particular task? "Shaping" does kind of hurt. At least it's not the kind of thing you look forward to do at 6:15 am before putting on your makeup for the day).

And while I kind of draw the line at saying I look LIKE these women...there's a similarity there. And that's why I reacted so strongly to the clip. Because what passes for "beauty" in our culture contains elements I do not have, or at least feel I do not have, when I look at myself in the mirror and compare myself to actresses or models. But I can look at that clip and recognize the women in it as beautiful (and yes, lots of them are very beautiful to me) and realize that perhaps what counts as attractive shouldn't be as narrow as it is right now.

(Incidentally - if you want to play the "how many of these can I guess right" game for the clip - I found myself sort of doing it - there is a "guide" here)

Edited, and adding: the more I watch that clip the more I think it's one of the most brilliant things on YouTube. Not just for the choice of artwork and music, not just for the social-commentary-that-I-am-reading-into-it, but for the way the faces "morph" - oh, I know, it's all done with computers and not with magic, but you know the saying about how any sufficiently technologically advanced process is indistinguishable from magic, and since I don't really understand the morphing algorithms used, I'm willing to accept that it's "magic."