Supplemental Post #6 - Giuliana Petrocelli

This week I watched I Feel Pretty with Amy Schumer, and while I am not a huge Amy Schumer fan and don't regard it as a new favorite film by any means, I thought that it was especially interesting. For those that are unaware, its plot deals with an average woman Renee (Schumer) who is uncomfortable with her own body image until she hits her head at SoulCycle and falls under a "spell" where she believes she is extremely attractive. While she hasn't actually changed physically, her confidence skyrockets and she starts to achieve personal and career success. When the "spell" is broken, she must come to understand that she earned everything herself, and that the world values her for more than beauty.

The film is an interesting twist of both conventional and progressive ideas. For one, this film can be viewed as a refreshing and real, relatable comedy that makes us realize that beauty isn't the most important thing in life. Throughout the film, we really do start to see Schumer as a beautiful woman as we admire her success in her company, and her personality and charm through the eyes of her boyfriend. It teaches that confidence is key, confidence is sexy, and that one's body should not lead to insecurity. It was refreshing to see an "average" actress onscreen and as the star of a whole film about beauty. Furthermore, in a Q&A with the writers, they stated that they intentionally had not showed the audience what Renee believed herself to look like under the "spell." In this way, they weren't telling the audience what someone "should" look like. As we know in our society, both men and women are plagued with insecurities about their bodies, no matter how pretty society tells them they are or aren't. Therefore, I feel that the film had a great message and was happy that Schumer was able to play the leading role. As we have studied in this class, female stars like Marilyn and Madonna have struggled to balance beauty with their career, and only recently have body-image stereotypes started to become more accepting (as seen through JLo's popularity). While we are accepting many different shapes and sizes today, this movie takes it a step farther in providing no physical expectation of beauty but rather recognizing and emphasizing beauty in confidence and wit.

It must be noted that the movie was met with some controversy and criticism. People claim that Schumer is still an average-sized, white, blond woman - someone who still benefits from the Hollywood beauty structure, someone who certainly doesn't have it "as bad" as other people.

Yet, all in all, I would not classify her as conventionally beautiful by Hollywood standards. It is a step forward and will hopefully continue to more progression and breakdowns of our cultural standards.