Professional model visits Samo to discuss beauty

Students entered the Humanities Center on Feb. 28 to be greeted by a 19-year-old model in a short blue dress and high heels.

O-House representative Alaleh Mokhtari ('15) invited this model, Amanda Ferree, to Samo to present her I AM BEAUTY campaign, which serves to promote self-confidence and inner beauty to youth. To show how unimportant external beauty is, Ferree changed in the middle of the presentation from her blue dress and heels into sweat pants and a t-shirt.

“Honestly, I thought that it was just going to be a presentation about the media and how they portray beauty,”  Elijah Lax (‘15) said.

In the middle of her presentation, Ferree interacted with the audience, asking questions pertaining to whether they felt insecure about their appearance or not, and their definitions of beauty.

“Raise your hand in the air if you think you’re too fat or too skinny,” Ferree said to the students. “My dad is out there raising his hand."

Many students in the audience raised their hands up when Ferree asked them whether or not they had the same insecurities that she was reading out loud. Hoping to establish connection with the students, she then presented statistics pertaining to the number of teens feeling insecure about appearance and desires to change outer appearances. After hearing the responses to her questions, Ferree shared statistics that only 11% of women feel comfortable saying that they are beautiful.

“The media feeds on what society thinks,” Ferree said. “Guys will open up a magazine and Kate Upton and enjoy that because thats what the media is feeding them— the industry is so corrupt and disconnected from the true meaning of beauty.”

The true definition of beautiful is, according to Ferree’s presentation, “delighting the senses or exciting intellectual or emotional admiration.” Ferree extrapolated that it is impossible to emotionally admire someone for their outer appearances and that the common idea of beauty is a misconception. She pushed for students to create their own beauty, be it, and own it, as the slogan of her campaign suggests.

“What struck me the most about the presentation would have to be the actual definition of beauty and how overlooked it is in society today,” Lax said.

While some students enjoyed and were inspired by Ferree’s presentation, others found it hypocritical.

“It was really hard for me to take her seriously as she kept trying to tell us beauty isn't appearance but she had a slideshow of her perfection in the background” Jessica Bonilla (‘15) said.

Ferree addressed this by saying she was hoping to take a stand against the industry, ending each assembly by having students crumple and throw their insecurity papers into a recycling bin as a means of having them create their own sense of beauty.

“It would be really  interesting and hopefully create a large impact since theres so many of us at Samo,” Bonilla said (‘15)cchang@thesamohi.com