Are
there benefits to constructing beauty?
Nicolas
Siino
ENGL
1100, Writing Skills Workshop
Professor
Young
November
21, 2014
"Because
You’re Worth It"
Beauty is routinely associated with morality,
sociability, kindness and other positive characteristics. It seems that women
are not striving for beauty, but rather desire to regulate their bodies in
order to appear within the bounds of 'normality'. The actor, athlete, model and advocate Aimee Mullins hosted a TED talk in
which she spoke about her many pairs of legs: "It's not fair having
12 pairs of legs" (Mullins,1). Born without fibula bones, Mullins lost both of her lower
legs when they were amputated below the knees when she was a year old. Mullins
said she grew up learning to walk, run, and compete in sports on wooden
prosthetic legs. Her prosthetic
legs empowered her and provided insight that impacted the evolution of the common
prosthesis. So, are there benefits to
constructing beauty? I believe Mullins has proven that beauty can mean so many
things and can differ from person to person. She has been an advocate for
beauty construction, which has allowed her not to be viewed as disabled, but
rather as a beautiful woman that, despite her physical
limitations, has pushed herself physically and mentally to succeed.
Mullins's first appearance on TED was back in 1989 with
her short, powerful talk, which was titled "Running on High-Tech Legs".
TED is a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading ideas to change attitudes,
lives and, ultimately, the world. These conferences have been known to create life-changing experiences for
both speakers and attendees and Mullins was no exception. She
explained that "TED literally
was the launch pad to the next decade of my life's exploration" (Mullins,1).
At
the time, the legs she presented were groundbreaking in prosthetics, which she
viewed as constructed beauty. Rather than mimic human anatomy, she wore woven carbon fiber sprinting legs modeled after the hind leg of a cheetah,
and also very life-like, intrinsically painted silicone legs. Through this creativity,
it enabled Mullins to view her prosthetics as art rather than as a disability. The
word disability is commonly referred to as something that is not attractive to
the eye of the beholder. Mullins's
objective is to engage her audience and make the point
that she can truly transform people's perceptions of women with disabilities as
well as empower people to see the beauty in themselves.
Beauty
can be defined as feeling your best and worthy of attention. For Mullins
wearing prosthetics is considered constructed beauty which includes many
benefits, such as feeling accepted, desirable, confident, stronger and faster. Over the years, Mullins has guided
people in a direction that adversity and change are not to be
dreaded, but actually welcomed as exciting parts of today's "new
normal." The
construction of beauty can give people hope and confidence in
themselves, and can lead them to finding what they deem truly beautiful. Mullins gained notoriety from
appearing on a TED Talk, which gave her the opportunity to reach out to innovators outside the traditional
medical prosthetic community. She asked them to bring their talents to the science
and to the art
of building legs. She
believed that representations of beauty not only
impact what the larger society believes about the body, but also how
individuals value and identify with their own bodies.
After appearing at the TED
conference, Mullins posed
on the cover of ID wearing running
clothes and her carbon fiber cheetah legs. This was only one of the many
benefits Mullins reaped from her constructed beauty. She was sought after by fashion designer Alexander McQueen and
photographer Nick Knight. She did a
fashion shoot for the cover
of DAZED magazine, titled "Fashion-able" and
participated in her first runway show for Alexander McQueen on a
pair of hand-carved wooden legs decorated with grapevines and magnolias, and
made from solid ash that appeared to be long brown boots. Mullins's next adventure was when she met the visual
artist Matthew Barney. She appeared in his
film called The Cremaster Cycle. Mullins realized that her legs could be wearable sculptures, and
she began to move away from the need to “replicate human-ness as
the only aesthetic ideal” (Mullins, 1). She posed in this film as a half-woman,
half-cheetah wearing her woven carbon fiber legs. She also posed wearing legs
that were cast in soil with a potato root system growing in them, and
beetroots out the top, with a brass toe as well as legs made out of
polyurethane to look like jellyfish legs. The purpose of these legs was to “provoke
the senses and ignite the imagination”(Mullins,1). As stated by Mullins, “I
want to get people to understand that a prosthesis doesn’t necessarily need to
look human. It can be a leg that you yourself consider beautiful” (Persson,1).
This quote illustrates how beauty as constructed art can change what people may
view as not attractive into something that is beautiful and intrigues the
senses. Mullins realized that her legs could be wearable sculptures and transformed
what she may have feared, her disability, into something that can be considered
beautiful works of art.
Aimee
Mullins has changed the world's understanding of
what is beautiful, what is normal and what is physically possible. Beauty can
be constructed and Mullins has shown that there are benefits that go along with
creating beauty. Some people may suggest
that both women and individuals with disabilities are believed to represent
negative, less valuable figures in society. Traditionally, individuals with
physical disabilities and deformities have been presented as flawed, not as people
with their own identities. Mullins is a motivational speaker that I believe
encourages women to discuss issues of beauty, to challenge traditional
standards, and to support one another. Mullins once said, "Confidence is the sexiest thing a
woman can have. It's much sexier than any body part.” (Hudson, 1). Mullins's
TED talks can give people hope and confidence in themselves, which teaches them
to overcome their affliction and motivates them to construct gratifying values
about the real definition of being beautiful.
