The legendary sex symbol and movie star, Sophia Loren is now 80 years old. Wow- think about that. I know it made me think about the parameters of beauty.
And it made me think of a more current pop culture Sophia, Sophia Vergara (from the sitcom Modern Family). The actress once did a wonderful television commercial for her Kmart clothing line.
The thing which caught my attention was her emphasis on “real woman” figures when it comes to clothing. In the commercial, she breaks into her design studio, breezes by designers hovering over their thin body sketches. She then takes a red pen and draws two sets of curvy bubbles over the bust and derrière areas of the drawings, stating, “you can’t draw a woman with straight lines.”
Bravo and Amen, Ms. Vergara!
Since then, I’ve been having a little “Sophia on the brain.” Both Loren and Vergara have been known as smoldering, exotic beauties with va-va-voom bodies to match. And it’s great to see someone be celebrated who is closer to a “real woman size/shape.”
However, we still are obsessed with unnatural, unhealthy and unattainable thinness. Even though statistics and articles keep telling us things like the “average” woman is a size 14.
So, what’s the deal?
We have lost touch with reality and, I believe beauty. It’s difficult to say anything positive about the subject matter without it sounding trite or cliché. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re all beautiful. And yeah, yeah, yeah, beauty is more than skin deep. Even Ms. Loren threw in her two cents:
“Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.”
But do we really buy it? Based on the diet, cosmetic and plastic surgery evidence out there, I’d have to say the answer is no.
Before extreme thinness was celebrated, once upon a time, we did see beauty in curvier- and bigger- terms. Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Jane Russell were just a few celebrated movie stars, beauties and sex symbols.
And, even with the inclusion of some curvier examples, like Ms. Vergara, Jennifer Lopez and Kate Winslet, we still seem to gravitate to a thinner beauty aesthetic.
That’s troubling, not because a thin frame is evil, but because we are shortsighted in our beliefs of inherent value, yes, including the characteristic of beauty.
If God doesn’t see us as ugly or worthless, why should we?
O my dove…let me see your form…for your form is lovely. Song of Solomon 2:14
…I am fearfully and wonderfully made… Psalm 139:14
For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. Psalm 139:13
Scripture gives us a reality check about our thoughts versus God’s thoughts. And there’s quite a discrepancy between the two:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9
Radical thought: what if God’s thoughts determined we all were great beauties, of the Sophia caliber? What if He didn’t just stop short at the famous Sophias’ attributes as being amazing, worthwhile and aesthetically pleasing forms?
O my dove…let me see your form…for your form is lovely. Song of Solomon 2:14
If thoughts are, indeed, so powerful, why can’t we think along the line of God’s thoughts, especially when it comes to our own self-image?
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he… Proverbs 23:7
What if we truly lived out this scripture from there?
…I am fearfully and wonderfully made… Psalm 139:14
What if we all had a little “Sophia on the brain,” but what if that was only the starting point of celebrating our fabulousness? We ARE worth discovering and living that beautiful Truth!!!