http://www.ncregister.com/blog/the-death-of-pretty (the direct link)
The Death Of Pretty
by Pat Archbold Wednesday, December 21, 2011 11:11 AM Comments (385)This post is intended as a lament of sorts, a lament for something in the culture that is dying and may never been seen again.
Pretty, pretty is dying.
People will define pretty differently. For the purposes of this piece, I define pretty as a mutually enriching balanced combination of beauty and projected innocence.
Once upon a time, women wanted to project an innocence. I am not idealizing another age and I have no illusions about the virtues of our grandparents, concupiscence being what it is. But some things were different in the back then. First and foremost, many beautiful women, whatever the state of their souls, still wished to project a public innocence and virtue. And that combination of beauty and innocence is what I define as pretty.
By nature, generally when men see this combination in women it brings out their better qualities, their best in fact. That special combination of beauty and innocence, the pretty inspires men to protect and defend it.
Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different. When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well.
As I said, pretty inspires men’s nobler instincts to protect and defend. Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity. Its value is temporary and must be used. It is a consumable.
Nowhere is this pretty deficit more obvious than in our “stars,” the people we elevate as the “ideal.” The stars of the fifties surely suffered from the same sin as do stars of today. Stars of the fifties weren’t ideal but they pursued a public ideal different from today.
The merits of hotness over pretty is easy enough to understand, they made an entire musical about it. Who can forget how pretty Olivia Newton John was at the beginning of Grease. Beautiful and innocent. But her desire to be desired leads her to throw away all that is valuable in herself in the vain hopes of getting the attention of a boy. In the process, she destroys her innocence and thus destroys the pretty. What we are left with is hotness.
Hotness is a consumable. A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth.
Most girls don’t want to be pretty anymore even if they understand what it is. It is ironic that 40 years of women’s liberation has succeeded only in turning women into a commodity. Something to be used up and thrown out.
Of course men play a role in this as well, but women should know better and they once did. Once upon a time you would hear girls talk about kind of women men date and the kind they marry. You don’t hear things like that anymore.
But here is the real truth. Most men prefer pretty over hot. Even back in 6th grade I hated the “hot” Olivia Newton John and felt sorry for her that she had to debase herself in such a way. Still do.
Our problem is that society doesn’t value innocence anymore, real or imagined. Nobody aspires to innocence anymore. Nobody wants to be thought of as innocent, the good girl. They want to be hot, not pretty.
I still hope that pretty comes back, although I think it not likely any time soon. For every Taylor Swift, there are a hundred Megan Foxs, or Lindsay Lohans, or Miley Cyruses etc.
Girls, please, bring back the pretty.
3 comments:
This article would make a great young women's lesson. Do you want to come teach? :)
I just want to be classy. I want to have better manners and not interrupt people. Basically, I like the article but more than anything I believe our actions speak louder than our words, and our words speak louder than what we look like. Not a lot of people believe that because they say we are so visual. Maybe that was too easy to write and it isn't true but I think that what comes out of our mouths and how we treat people are the most important things. I just don't want to dress to show my body. But I don't want to cover it up and hide. Our bodies aren't something we should feel like to be pure, we have to hide them. They are created by our God. We just need to dress them as such but that doesn't mean we can't be very attractive. I think as LDS women, we owe it to our Heavenly Father with all He has blessed us with not to turn around and slouch and be homely in our modest sweat attire. We need to doll ourselves up. We're the light of the world.
I completely agree. I see the yw in my ward wanting to be "hot" instead of "pretty". It makes me so sad. They laugh at the thought of being "innocent". They want and seek attention from boys. They wear shirts with their boobies hanging out. The sad thing is, they even wear this kind of apparel at CHURCH! With their MOTHER and FATHER sitting right next to them. It makes me sick that the parents allow them out of the house in what they wear.
I think I am going to push to have a YW lesson/activity on this article. Maybe even watch Greece and incorporate that into the lesson.
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