Random Thoughts About I Feel Pretty

Posted on by theageofthediary

I watched the movie I Feel Pretty, which is about Renee, an “ugly” girl who wishes she were born beautiful. She hits her head and when she wakes up, she sees herself as beautiful, but, in truth, nothing has changed. However, because of her perception of herself, she becomes confident. Thus she gets a boyfriend, and a job that she wants which is being a receptionist at this high-end makeup firm.

The actress who plays the lead is Amy Schumer, hardly an ugly girl. Her character often talks about how fat she is and how this is the reason why she doesn’t get attention from men. Schumer is not even fat. There are so many girls who have her size. Can it be that all girls her size think that if they were skinnier then they’ll finally get a boyfriend? I know lots of women who are uglier and fatter than Schumer who have boyfriends or even husbands, so nobody really needs to be Hollywood pretty or Hollywood skinny just to have a love life.

At her new job, Renee suddenly becomes important because the company wants to create a more affordable line. Renee knows more about what the regular girl wants. The CEO is impressed and promotes Renee to vice president of the line. This is unrealistic because if the company has no experience in making an accessible line, all they need to do is hire someone who does and has actually had managerial experience. Why would they hire their receptionist just because she’s a regular girl?

Also, this is how capitalism works. The rich are able to dominate the markets not just by selling to the rich but also to the poor. They invade that market segment by creating a new line of products thereby edging out small companies that could have been catering to that segment of the market. Winner takes all.

Renee’s speech at the end of the movie was cringy and the logic is flawed. At this point of the movie, she is already back to her “ugly” self, but when she sees photos of the time when she was beautiful, she realizes that she looks the same. First of all, why didn’t she even look at the photos she took during her “beautiful period”? Did the photos morph also in her eyes? Then that should mean that all of her photos should morph into beautiful photos, but when she looked at a photo that was supposedly taken before she became beautiful, she saw her ugly self. Second, her whole message was “Be who you are and accept yourself for who you are”, but she was also selling a makeup line. How do you reconcile, “Accept who you are message” with makeup, a product that basically helps you change your appearance?

I like the whole message about how your disadvantages can become advantages. Her regular girl life, her poverty, are the reasons why she became valuable to the company. Her ugliness is the reason why people were so impressed with her confidence. Maybe I should really stop worrying about not being born privileged and find ways to turn my weaknesses into strengths.

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