Being the mother of two pre-teen girls, the "SELFIE" has been a big issue in our house as of late. Lila particularly, who is 12 and on Instragram a lot, is huge on the "selfie" and we have to talk a lot about what is appropriate and not and how we choose to portray and feel about ourselves in this social media world we live in. Even for myself and what I do, it is constantly having to be examined.
Yesterday morning, via Facebook, a friend of mine shared Dove's latest real beauty campaign about the "selfie" and how it makes us look at and define beauty. I watched it with Lila and found myself in tears. What a fragile subject for mothers and daughters.
Can a selfie define one’s sense of beauty?
That is the question beauty product maker Dove set out to answer in a documentary short film that made its debut Monday at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.
“Selfie” follows a group of teenage girls from Massachusetts and their mothers who were asked to take selfies of the features of themselves they disliked the most. The mother-daughter duos then attend an event where their self-portraits are blown up and posted in a “#BeautyIs selfie photo gallery.”
The goal of the seven-minute film, according to Dove, is for the women to redefine their own beauty and see that insecurity often lies beneath the personal snapshots.
“Selfie” marks the 10th anniversary of Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty”.
Dove says its own research found that 62 percent of women feel they are responsible for influencing their own definition of beauty and that 55 percent of women believe social media plays a larger role in influencing the beauty conversation than traditional media.
Tracey Clark, an author and blogger at Babble.com, says she made it a priority to watch “Selfie,” both for herself and her two daughters.
“I really want my girls to know that in every phase of their lives, they are beautiful for who they are,” Clark told ABC News. “And it’s important for me to internalize that for myself.”
"I think beauty is being strong and being brave, and being happy with yourself, I think that is really beautiful"