Ideas of Ideals
By: Apoorva Muppala
Tags: Culture, Representation, Body Image, Mass Media, Diversity

Without trying to sound like a narcissist (and perhaps miserably failing, you can be the judge of that), I have often looked at myself in the mirror and just had the word “why” plague my thoughts.

Why is my hair so frizzy? Why aren’t my lips symmetrical? Why is one eye a slightly different shape than the other?

Years of exposure to traditional mass media, societal expectations, and the goal of perfection have left us simmering in a state of existence where many never feel good enough. If you don’t believe me, just pick up a random magazine and flip through it. Once you get to the last page, you have a lasting impression in your mind of what you’re supposed to look like. Whether it’s straight hair, the perfect complexion, a thigh gap, or whatever the latest fad is, you feel that you most certainly don’t possess that quality and you’re therefore unworthy.

Unworthiness. That’s a funny word and one that’s perhaps impossible to agree on a definition for. Google (or rather, vocabulary.com) tells me it’s “the quality or state of lacking merit or value”. At face value, I think we can all accept the general idea or intention behind the statement. It’s a feeling of “lacking something”, which means you don’t fit “some” standard. But notice how ambiguous that sentence was? What is the “something” you don’t have, such that you don’t match “some” ideal? If we get into that topic, I’m afraid I may be here for the rest of my life trying to think of all of these qualities and standards that people have defined as the “state of perfection”. But the gist of it is that we often repeat those words to ourselves regularly, and are therefore always left wondering what exactly it is we lack to meet some expectation or requirement.

You may ask where these feelings of unworthiness stem from, and it’s hard to pinpoint one root cause for this issue. Many attribute this phenomenon to the media, in its many forms, and I don’t necessarily disagree with that perspective. In my opinion, the production and consumption of mainstream media have historically been very much top-down, where a few dominant opinions have been disseminated amongst an increasingly distinct and changing society. The problem arises when diversity in the creation of media doesn’t keep up with the increasing diversity amongst the population and therefore enforces the viewpoints of a few on a group where a large proportion don’t fit into those ideals.

Branching off into a topic that’s close to heart, and speaking as a woman of color, it’s no secret that ethnic minorities have often felt under-represented in many aspects. They generally haven’t seen themselves reflected in the key opinion leaders and spokespeople that influence the general direction or opinions of society. Growing up as a South Indian person in a society where Indian culture is predominantly represented by a small proportion of the Indian population, I often felt that there were no role models I could look up to in a positive manner. As a teenager in the process of forming a perception and understanding of my own self, this lack of positive representation made me sincerely question my “place” in society. I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has gone through this process of trying to find an optimistic representation of their culture in the traditionally homogenous media world. Numerous people from a wide range of backgrounds have spoken about this conflict, as they haven’t seen their identity represented positively to a wider audience. I’m not the first or last person to write about this issue, but my voice is one of the many who have brought to light the issue of no representation, or worse, misrepresentation in society.

In the last ten years or so, however, there has been a shift towards increasing the diversity showcased in media. Whether through including people of different cultures, body sizes, personalities, or numerous other factors, there has been a move towards opening up the stage to others. This is in great part due to increasing demand for improved inclusivity, yet it’s an aspect that we should always strive to take to the next level. The rise of the digital age has meant that traditionally under-represented groups now have the chance to consume media created by people they can relate to personally, which has in itself encouraged the production of media historically dubbed as being “niche”. Logging on to YouTube or Instagram these days, I can see people that look like or are similar to me, and I think this is one of the many steps towards representation and self-acceptance. The ideals of society should change to fit you, not the other way around. Of course, that’s not to say you need to conform to any expectation, but instead, my statement is meant to highlight the fact that we need to have a wider view of what defines a society. Whether that’s in terms of skin color, body shape, body size, personality type, traits, perspectives, or others, we need to look beyond what we already know.

At the end of the day, the world is in a constant state of flux, making it almost impossible to stay static when everything around us is changing rapidly. It’s important to keep the dialogue of cultural representation in media alive and active, as it’s a conversation that needs to be had. While the representation of a varied range of cultures has come a long way, there is still a long way to go before we can say that the endeavor has been successful.

The key message to emphasize is that there perhaps is no “ideal” because we’re all different people with complex backgrounds and stories. Enforcing a rigid set of rules on what people should be like only serves to increase the divide between different groups, by alienating or excluding their unique traits or attributes. I can only hope that the more we as a society are exposed to different viewpoints or images, the more we begin to adopt those perspectives and celebrate each individual for who they are.