One of the things that bothers me about this generation is
our obsession with perfection. Our film stars have to look a certain way, and
our singers have to hit those notes perfectly every time. We’ve no room for
imperfection.
Take Florence Welch for example. I was never really a fan of
Florence and the Machine until a few months ago, and the reason was Miss Welsh.
There was something off about her voice to me that took a while for me to
appreciate. What it is is that her voice isn’t polished. Her vibrato is often
too fast and sometimes when singing live, you can hear her stretching for the
high notes; stretching but hitting them. Her voice is undeniable, but because
it isn’t perfect, I’d disregarded her.
Another case of this is Kristen Stewart. Kristen Stewart is
by no means a great actress, but people seem to have made the decision that she
is a bad one. I think Stewart has an awkward quality on screen and I don’t mean
this as a bad thing as the characters she plays are in the most part
introverted characters, and her own introverted nature works well. She isn’t
groomed like other actresses to say the right thing or hold themselves a
certain way. She’s not a star. And I think this is a lot of the reasons people
have a problem with her. I think it also comes down to the Twilight films in
which I am not a fan of her performance, but a bad performance does not make a
bad actress. And because she doesn’t have the slick magnetism of someone like
Charlize Theron, doesn’t mean she’s bad at her craft. I think Kristen has her
own unique performance, and it will either be to your taste or it won’t, but it’s
not right to disregard her completely.
I think the obsession with perfection comes down to beauty
as well. Most people see beauty in the manufactured look of Nicki Minaj or
Megan Fox, and the truth is that it may be ‘beautiful’ to you, but isn’t real. Take
someone like Lady GaGa. GaGa uses make up and wigs to complete outfits, neither
of which have to flatter her. In some videos, darker make-up doesn’t highlight
her natural features, but instead crafts her into her outfits, instead of the
other way around. Take all that away and you do have a beautiful woman. No, her
face isn’t perfect. But she is beautiful. What I think this stems from is the
media either highlighting these ‘imperfections’, or trying to hide them with Photoshop
and airbrushing.
I clearly don’t exempt myself from this; I do it with many
things. I’m just saying that it’s a really unattractive quality that the media
has moulded our generation into demanding perfection, because it then puts
pressure on the people in the limelight. But the question I really want to ask
is:
“If something isn’t perfect, is it broken?”
