Group Film ~ America the Beautiful

A few days ago my group and I watched the  documentary called "America the Beautiful" a film by Daryl Roberts.

Here is a review of the documentary: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080508/REVIEWS/277581949/-1/REVIEWS01

Ebert summarizes the documentary, "It's about a culture "saturated with the perfect."I agree with this statement after watching the film. I don't have the best self- esteem, but after watching the film, I feel a lot better about myself than some of the skinny models interviewed. Gerren, the twelve year old model Roberts follows through her 1 year of success as a child in the major fashion industry. Gerren became wanted because of her age. But soon after she became thirteen, she learned her hips were too big for Milan. She no longer models and instead plays volleyball. It seems to me that the fashion industry is changing so much that they need different models every time a new show is getting ready to launch. The casting directors that once offered Gerren jobs, now say that they need someone smaller. Gerren strives for the best, but in the fashion industry good is never enough. Ebert emphasizes the small interviews with models and the statistic as the part of the documentary that really unsettles the viewers. I agree to that because every time a statistic came on the screen , the girls and I cringed and usually had comments about whatever the stat was.

I don't have the best self-esteem when it comes to my body but don't most people? Before watching the documentary, I thought I would be bombarded with images of happy self confident models, but instead they were all talk about losing more weight to get into certain shows. I now have a deeper appreciation of myself and the way God made me. I know I should be happy that He gave me a good life and need to thank God more often. I now want to pray for those in my community or around the world with the same self- esteem issues as me and the models in the film.