Define.. Good...

It is amazing to think how we subconsciously link looks and body types up with certain adjectives. When I picture a good American, we picture a skinny, handsome, white male. But why does this figure have to be fit, handsome and white? Why do we stereotype adjectives around people’s traits? It is absurd to think about, but this is such a true action in our everyday lives and we do not spare a moment to think about why we do that. Obviously, a good American does not have to have all these traits. There are good American people that are women, fat, black, gay, and ugly. The qualities in my head have just been meshed together because society has molded these figures into our heads and we are stuck believing that by first impression, a fat person is a lazy, good-for-nothing, bad American, worker. While if we see a fit person, we believe initially that they are hard-working, energetic, driven, leaders and role-models.
LeBesco said it perfectly in her piece when she stated “When biology is mistaken for destiny, inequalities prosper” (LeBesco, 55). This is a huge point in her piece because it helped give insight as to how we judge a book by the cover. When did this all happen though? Looking back to the medieval times, if you were of royal decent, you were most likely fat to show you have money to feed yourself graciously. Those who were skinny were usually peasants and were slender not by choice but by reason. This made me realize that destiny is out of the question, and that your destiny could not be determined by your body type or physical features because the outlook on these traits often changes. Our culture has shown us what to stereotype when we see different traits. However, these traits are often biological and only surgery or anorexia will fix these issues. Which is what links this piece to the Black and Brown Bodies Under the Knife article. This article explained how more and more people of ethnic decent were getting plastic surgery done on their body.
Hunter explained in this article how her mother used make-up to mask her big black lips, and how Mexicans were often self-conscious of their wide noses. She spoke of a 12 year-old in Mexico City that already wanted surgery so she can have a skinny “good” nose. Hunter then goes on to state that “over one fourth of all cosmetic surgery patients in Mexico are teenagers… Narrower noses are often told that they are lucky they have such a ‘good nose’” (Hunter, 54). But why is this? There are beautiful women in this world that have wide noses or large lips. Why must you have a skinny nose or thinner lips in order for them to be ‘good’?
These articles made me angry when I learned about the high statistic of teenage surgery, as well as disappointed that I, myself, stereotype physical features on people to link them to adjectives that are in no way related to the size or shape of a person.