The Reflection in the Mirror: When the "Inferiority Complex" of Modern Day America Meets The Bluest Eye

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Obviously, no one is able to see what they really look like, because only flat mirrors will produce a true reflection, and due to even the slightest manufacturing errors, household mirrors are never perfectly flat. However, the reflection that is reciprocated when you look in the mirror is extremely close to how everyone else sees you. Even so, some people perceive their reflections in a mirror from minute to far fetched exaggerations of how their reflections appear. People who deal with anorexia or bulimia fall on the extreme and "far fetched" side of this spectrum, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, there are people who are consumed with the thoughts of an imperfect appearance. Where does this insecurity come from? There is no evidence that people are somehow born with insecurities of their appearance or behavior, so what continues to perpetuate this "condition" in today's society? For one, the media plays a monumental role in declaring what is perceived as "beautiful" and what is not through photoshopped photos of supermodels gracing magazine covers, and the idolization of  handsome or beautiful actors and actresses who appear to have it all. As a result, many people end up altering their identities and personalities to fit society's standards.

Barbie Dolls: Is this how we define beauty?

From an early age, young American girls are exposed to these "socially constructed ideas of 'beauty'" through Barbie Dolls. Barbie's perfect body shape, accentuated curves, beautiful complexion and blonde hair impress a certain idea of "beauty" upon the minds of children. An awareness of this dangerous impression on the minds of young girls has led to the manufacturing of different races of Barbie Dolls, and even a variety of Barbies characterized by respectable occupations, but ultimately, Barbie's constant state of "perfection" has left America with two questions: how do we define beauty, and what are the consequences of this definition? To this day, it seems as if America is bought into the "Barbie Doll" definition of beauty; however, the answer to the second question has become a controversial one. Many campaigns have originated as a result of the population's cry for change. The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty beginning in 2004 and continuing to the present day arose through an awareness that society's definition of beauty "had become limiting and unattainable". The destructive effects of this definition has left only 2% of women in the world claiming to feel beautiful and another 98% with a lack of confidence characterized by Alfred Adler's "Inferiority Complex". In short, this complex instigates a low self-esteem, which consists of feelings of "intense insecurity", or a fear of not measuring up. This sense of inferiority can be intensified to a degree in which a person believes that they can never compensate for the aspects that make them "imperfect" in comparison to society's standards of beauty, or it can be acted upon through exaggerated aggression in trying to overcome the complex.

Michael Jackson in 2005

Michael Jackson circa 1970s

Contrary to the popular belief that teenage boys are unaffected in the same way that girls are by the media with regards to the definition of beauty, 54% of girls and 41% of boys ages 13-19 are dissatisfied with their appearance. One of the most popular male icons of modern day America, Michael Jackson, severely augmented his physical appearance through plastic surgery and skin bleaching, leaving him almost unrecognizable. Although Michael claimed his reasons for surgery to be medically based, many people believe that there was an underlying "Racial Self-Loathing" of his "inferiority complex" that influenced his transformation. Although his dermatologist and others close to him supported his claim that he suffered from "vitiligo", which Michael claimed as his reason for turning his skin white, race cannot be completely separated from the equation. He went as far as getting rid of his wider nose, characteristic of many blacks, to choosing a skinnier, more defined nose, characteristic of many caucasians. Furthermore, a certain "Afro-denial" as the comic, The Boondocks illustrates, is demonstrated in Michael's longer, straighter, black hair circa 2005.

Similarly, Toni Morrison demonstrates the detrimental effects of socially constructed ideas of beauty and what is acceptable in The Bluest Eye. Many characters suffer from an "inferiority complex" that leaves them struggling with their own identities apparent through their questioning of and conformity to socially constructed ideas of beauty. 

In receiving the stereotypical gift of a "big, blue-eyed, Baby Doll" for Christmas, Claudia MacTeer begins to question the legitimacy of society's social construct of perfection and beauty. 

I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me. Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs-- all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured (20).

Like the adolescents of today's society, Claudia's family is affected by the perpetuation of society's standards of   beauty. They bought Claudia the baby doll because they were enchanted by the idea that this baby doll represented a way for Claudia to fit in to society's definitive standards. However, Claudia's "inferiority complex" forced her to investigate the origins of the standard of perfection manifested through the doll. She claims the "desirability had escaped her" illustrating a consciousness of her worthlessness according to society's standards, and acknowledges the influence of the "shops, magazines, newspapers, and window signs" in formulating society's definition of beauty. However, as soon as she dismembers the doll, she discovers the fake, manufactured facade of this baby doll demonstrated through "a mere metal roundness", or the battery, that keeps the doll functioning (21). When Claudia looks in the "mirror" she sees a girl that refuses to believe the socially constructed ideas of beauty, but she also sees that any attempt to counter this stereotype would be futile because of her race. She is left with conflicted feelings and a state of mind that refuses to let her believe she is worth anything.

Contrarily, Geraldine deals with her "inferiority complex" in the opposite way. Geraldine conforms to the standards set by society because she is attempting to overcome her "inferiority complex" through compensating for it in the only way she knows how: bourgeois respectability. Geraldine's attempts are illustrated in Morrison's words characterizing Geraldine's lifestyle.

Here they learn the rest of the lesson...how to behave. the careful development of thrift, patience, high morals, and good manners. In short, how to get rid of the funkiness (83).

Geraldine longing to get rid of the so-called "funkiness" that represents her rich African American heritage, parallels the skepticism that surrounds the reasons for Michael Jackson's nose job and drastic skin color transformation. Geraldine's "racial self-loathing" consumes her, and she longs to conform to American society's definitions of beauty and what is acceptable in order to eradicate the "inferiority complex" from her life. However, despite her various attempts, she is unable to measure up to the unattainable standards of perfection and is left broken when she ends up "in the second row, her white blouse starched, and blue skirt almost purple from ironing" (82).

The Power of Ads

The questions that one may ask themselves while reading this novel are, how can one hate oneself so much that they attempt to look, act, think like someone they are not?  To desire something so far from their reach that’s not even worth wishing for? How can they deny the simple things that make one happy to just please society? Morrison’s answer is advertisement of what the majority see as acceptable through the media, magazines, etc.

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In her novel, The Bluest Eye, Morrison points out to her readers that because of all the attention white American girls and women had during the 40’s, it had an undeniable negative effect on the African American female community, like it does to Pecola, Geraldine, Pauline, and to some extent, Claudia.  In this heart-breaking novel, Toni Morrison answers the “how” to the “why” her main characters are they way they are due to society’s perception of beauty.  For one, the advertisements have a major role in manipulating the minds of little black girls, such as the characters in Morrison's novel.  One of the main characters, Pecola, thought that if she had blue eyes, everyone would like her, approach her, and not be repulsed by her.  She desired to have blue eyes because she saw that being like them, the “pretty” girls, was the only way to beautiful during those times.  Not only did she see beauty in them, but she also saw a greater power in the blue eyes: that with blue eyes, the bitter and violent fights her parents had would stop because they would say, "Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty eyes.” (46). Pecola did not feel beautiful due to those reasons and in result, her insecurity was visible to others around her.  Her low-confidence in herself allowed black boys and girls to pick on her, ignore her, and treat her differently. Pecola, however, is not the only one craving to be more like the white girls, Geraldine is also on that same boat.

Morrison, interestingly enough, starts the chapter about Geraldine by introducing her as “they”.  By presenting Geraldine as “they, Morrison tries to point out to her readers that there was a social pressure for “colored” women (Black women who imitated white women).  They are expected to embrace the majority, and disregard their individuality to be accepted and allie themselves with the women superior to them, white women.  For example, like many white people in the 40’s, Geraldine is against trying to connect with black folks because they were known as dirty, uncivilized, and a minority to the white men and women.  This hatred of her own kind, leads to self-loathing, a major issue during this time for African Americans that Morrison emphasizes to her readers in this chapter about Geraldine in particular. By hating her own skin, Geraldine becomes very insecure with her body and is afraid of feeling dangerous, risky, exciting, and so on.  By both being disgusted by black men and women and her insecurity, she is incapable of enjoying sexual intercourse with her own husband.  Something that is supposed to be so beautiful and natural is bluffed and meaningless. She wonders, however, “what it would be like to have that feeling...”, but does not allow herself to feel such feelings or desires because she wants to keep her reputation of a clean and civil woman, as colored women were supposed to act (85).

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Nowadays, society see’s beautiful as having the perfect body, skin, hair and, of course,clothes.  Not too much different than 72 years ago, but it has been over exposed now that everything gets around much quicker for everyone around the world to see.  For example you have the magazines such as Seventeen, People, Cosmo, J-14, and tons more that talk about being fit and having the “summer bod” to have all heads turning.  For the majority of all those magazines, their models are skinny, tall, have the ideal body and their skin is flawless.  However, they will be and are photoshopped, which has us believe that people could possibly look like angels or something close to that. And though a lot of its readers know they are photoshopped, they still aim for the goal to have all those “perfect” traits.  Another example is the Victoria Secret models.  Girls obsess to have what they have, to be able to walk in a tiny, ityy-bitty bikini and not have to worry about belly rolls or legs that jiggle like jello. Third, movies, commercials, and T.V. shows also play a big part in the mind-controlling business of advertising.  In most, if not all movies that are of love or for teens specifically, somehow always have the main girl and guy be absolutely flawless.  Of course, after fantasizing to have that one cute guy fall for her, she wants to be like the girl in the movie, perfectly desirable. With T.V. shows its a little different.  Soem reality T.V. shows are meant mostly for entertainment, but unconsciously its advertising to its audience how to behave, appear, and think.  Evidently, these T.V. shows such as Jersey Shore, Bad Girls Club, Super Sweet Sixteen, and many more have had an effect on girls, especially, with other shows that show the outcome of these behaviors with 16 and Pregnant and True Life.

The pressure that society a couple years ago, and even now, was putting on teen girls and women had unfortunately caused a lot of issues that back in the 40's were not very known or even done.  More and more girls had become anorexic trying to reach the ideal body, which in many cases have lead to extreme situations having to be done to them or the disease would even cause an early death.  Not only this but for old and young women, plastic surgery was becoming very popular, still is. These choices were and are not made because they actually were in real need of it, but its done to change their appearance to look and feel more like the celebrities and models in perfume, swimsuit, clothing commercials and magazines. Today, society and the media are the little devil whispering in their ears to tell them what is beautiful, and that they are not it and will not be until they have exactly what the beautiful girl in the magazine has. But I cannot say it hasn't gotten better, because it has.  Now, not only women but also men have been realizing the dangers of the media and how much power it has over the minds of young girls, in particular.  In addition there have been sections in magazines and some shows about how to bring yourself up, how to be confident without having to change your looks.  But a lot of girls still want perfection, and its something Toni Morrison suggests we pay close attention to; that the insecurity that Morrison expresses with her readers of what African American women felt during many decades, especially in the 40's, is now in the minds and souls of the black, colored, white, young, and old. It gets to a point were young women and teens try so hard to impress and imitate idolized models and actresses, that they do whatever it takes to get there, and what takes to get there isn't always the best or safest choice.

The Bluest Eye and Dubois' The Souls of Black Folk

W.E.B. Dubois’s The Souls of Black Folk introduces two concepts describing the blacks’ experience in America: the veil and double consciousness. Both The Souls of Black Folk and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye emphasize the racial self-loathing blacks have once they fully understand how different they are from whites. They begin to feel inferior to whites and do not view themselves as true Americans. Most would rather either become white, or disappear and become invisible. Blacks grow up learning how to objectify beauty; it something that is taught, and it is generally defined as having white skin, blue eyes, and nice hair. Once blacks learn these standards of beauty, they accept themselves as ugly without question. They proceed to live their lives, ashamed of their appearance and their ultimate lack of whiteness. This shame draws out the concept of the veil, which is used by blacks to hide their ugly appearance from white judgment and disapproval.

"How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.  And yet, being a problem is a strange experience, -- peculiar even for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe. It is in the early days of rollicking boyhood that the revelation first bursts upon one, all in a day, as it were. I remember well when the shadow swept across me. I was a little thing, away up in the hills of New England, where the dark Housatonic winds between Hoosac and Taghkanic to the sea. In a wee wooden schoolhouse, something put it into the boys' and girls' heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards -- ten cents a package -- and exchange. The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card, -- refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine."

- W.E.B. Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk (2)

Shown in both Dubois's The Souls of Black Folk and Morrison's The Bluest Eye, blacks have two very significant revelations early in life: the moment they realize they are black, and the moment they realize it is a problem. Dubois's experience exemplifies the self-hatred blacks feel once they understand how different they are from whites, and are therefore excluded by society as ugly, inferior, and essentially a "problem." In this time period, blacks grew up learning the standards of beauty, and what is accepted by society and what isn't. For instance, Claudia, in The Bluest Eye, acknowledges a point in her life when she had not yet been taught certain standards in society. Claudia did not understand what was so adorable about the Shirley Temple doll she got for Christmas, and she recalls, "Younger than both Frieda and Pecola, I had not yet arrived at the turning point in the development of my psyche which would allow me to love her" (Morrison 19). Furthermore, Dubois's experience explains that blacks are blocked from the rest of the world "by a vast veil." This veil is a physical and metaphorical barrier between blacks and whites, and Dubois recalls that he never attempted to break through that social barricade: "I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through." In The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove has a similar revelation. She only feels comfortable behind her veil: "Concealed, veiled, eclipsed - peeping out from behind the shroud very seldom, and then only to yearn for the the return of her mask" (Morrison 39). Pecola has no desire to tear down her veil; her only desire is to become white and have blue eyes, so she can be accepted by the rest of society.

            The concept of sight plays into Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Dubois’s The Souls of Black Folk in that blacks are living in a world that enables them to only see themselves through whites’ eyes.

“A world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.”

 – W.E.B. Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk

Any African American’s attempt to know themselves, and see themselves as who they really are, is blocked by white superiority and their standards for living. Morrison additionally demonstrates this lack of self-consciousness with Pecola’s character: “Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would see only what there was to see: the eyes of other people” (Morrison 46-47). Pecola is unable to see herself for who she really is; she can only see herself through the eyes of other people. Society has made it impossible for blacks to know themselves and to be an individual. 

"Look Twice": Black Star Revises The Bluest Eye

Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star (10) album cover

First edition of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (1970)

In the true meaning of "revision," seeing something anew, Talib Kweli and Mos Def of the rap group Black Star, revise the words and the ideas of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye in their song "Thieves in the Night" from their self-titled debut album. The song takes its title and its chorus from the closing passage of the novel in which the child narrator, Claudia, reflects on how her classmate Pecola was ostracized unfairly by the black community (and the larger white community) for her alleged "ugliness." Kweli and Def affirm Morrison's argument that, as they put it in the song, "the law of the bluest eye" still governs black experience in America: Anglo-Saxon ideas of beauty, blue eyes, straight, blond hair---are considered the norm. But the rappers also update these "laws" and show how their "jurisdiction" has extended from the segregation-era ideas of racial beauty that the Nobel Prize laureate critiques in her first book. Kweli writes in the liner notes to "Black Star" of reading The Bluest Eye in a high school classroom and how the novel, as he writes, "struck me as one of the truest critiques of our society, and I read that in high school when I was 15 years old. I think it is especially true in the world of hip hop, because we get blinded by these illusions." Within the "hip-hop" context of postindustrial urban African American communities, "the law of the bluest eye" still applies, it guides the actions of the police state in its management of inner-city black bodies.

Kweli at Rawkus Records in NYC, 1999

Mos Def's second verse of "Thieves in the Night" perhaps provides the closest reading of the novel in the song. He begins, "Yo, I'm sure that everbody out listenin agree / That everything you see ain't really how it be." This idea that seeing is not being is critical to The Bluest Eye: Pecola's "ugliness" is never confirmed literally in the text; her lack of beauty is how she is seen by white society, not how she actually looks. Mos Def, though, sees something of the psychology of Pecola's "racial self-loathing," as Morrison calls it in her Afterword, the internalized racism from which Pecola and others in the novel suffer, in contemporary inner-city black male youth:

Most cats in my area be lovin the hysteria
Synthesized surface conceals the interior
America, land of opportunity, mirages and camoflauges
More than usually -- speakin loudly, sayin nothin

Morrison links Pecola's negative self-image to the broader images of normative American identity, family, and home through the juxtaposition of the Breedlove household with the idealized household of Dick and Jane from the primary readers. For Def too, there is a broader national narrative at stake, the very idea of the American dream is little more than a "synthesized surface" that "conceals" a far less hopeful reality. Mos Def seems to argue that it is the worship of materialism, integral to the American dream, that is particularly problematic in black communities when he raps "Gets yours first, them other niggas secondary / That type of illin that be fillin up the cemetery." For Def, the rampant consumerism, perhaps in the rap songs and videos of more mainstream artists, is a form of "mental slavery": "Put you on a yacht, but they don't call it a slaveship." The binary system of racial identification of the Jim Crow era still lingers in the late twentieth century when African American men must chose between being "niggas or Kings." Moreover, the establishment of one's "monarchy" seems contingent on exerting one's power over other blacks, just as Pecola is used as a scapegoat by the larger black community in their establishment of the dichotomy between "niggers" and "colored people" (87).

The American dream family according to the Dick and Jane primers

And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good but well behaved, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect, we switched habits to simulate maturity; rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old ideas the Revelation and the Word. (206)

The title of Black Star's song seems to argue that blacks are still in some ways hiding their true identities, like "thieves in the night," as a result of the pressures to conform imposed by mainstream American society. By revising the final passage of The Bluest Eye in the chorus to the song, they repeat and develop Morrison's argument that the conformity of assimilation is a kind of social death, in her words, "hiding from life." The idea of being "not strong...only aggressive" bears a specifically interesting relation to the image of the "thug" in modern black life--inner-city gangsters, Def and Kweli seem to argue, are street tough but not truly "strong" in the sense of strength of character. In lyrics added to the final paraphrased passage from The Bluest Eye, Black Star reiterate that young black men may be "chasin' after death," but are not truly "brave." In a clear reference to the style of 1990s gangsta rap, Talib Kweli writes in his first verse to "Thieves in the Night":

Survival tactics means bustin gats to prove you hard
Your firearms are to short for God
Without faith, all of that is illusionary
Raise my son, no vindication of manhood necessary.

The underground rappers are searching for a form of black masculinity not defined by one's "hardness," but by more spiritual qualities like faith and family. Like Morrison does in The Bluest Eye, Black Star attempts to "find beauty in the hideous." Again, for Kweli and Mos Def, the "thug life" is part of the legacy of American chattel slavery with the prison-industrial complex serving as the postmodern plantation.

[M.D.] Not strong
[T.K.] Only aggressive
[M.D.] Not free
[T.K.] We only licensed
[M.D.] Not compassioniate, only polite
[T.K.] Now who the nicest?
[M.D.] Not good but well behaved
[T.K.] Chasin after death
So we can call ourselves brave?
[M.D.] Still livin like mental slaves
[Both] Hidin like thieves in the night from life
Illusions of oasis makin you look twice
[Both] Hidin like thieves in the night from life
Illusions of oasis makin you look twice

The Bluest Eye and Dove Beauty Campaign

Everyone is faced with the challenge of living up to a created, idealized perception of beauty. Society has fabricated this perception and enforces it every day through ads in magazines, movies, ect. The goal of the Dove Beauty Campaign is to increase awareness that "our perception of beauty is distorted" and to encourage people to find beauty in themselves and boost their self-confidence.

In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison critiques society for teaching racial self-loathing to African Americans through the media and advertising. Likewise, the Dove Beauty Campaign advocates for women to recognize that the models we see everywhere are fake and should not determine what we define as beautiful since their beauty is oversimplified and in this case, a product of very effective photoshopping:

During the photoshopping scene in this video, the model's neck is elongated, and her eyes and lips are enlarged. People have agreed that these features are the most important features on the human face, and the more prominent they are, the more beautiful that person is. Similarly, Claudia recognizes that "shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs-all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured" (20). During the time period in which The Bluest Eye was written, society was especially keen on white skin, blond hair and blue eyes. Claudia can't understand this phenomenon, and dismembers the white dolls she receives for Christmas "to see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty" (20). Once Claudia pulls apart the dolls, however, there is nothing left but "a mere metal roundness" (20). Hence, there is nothing that makes white people more beautiful than black people; it is merely society determining what is beautiful or not. Society, the "mysterious all-knowing master," has determined that being poor and black is synonymous with being ugly. The Breedlove family has no choice but to believe society, since "they had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance" (39). The boys who taunt Pecola for being black do so out of "contempt for their own blackness" (65). Society has "smoothly cultivated [their] ignorance" of their own unique beauty. They are described as having "learned self-hatred" and their hopelessness is "designed" (65). Morrison indirectly states that society has planned blacks' hatred of themselves, by bombarding them constantly with images of whiteness as more superior in regards to physical appearance. 

Toni Morrison begins her novel with an excerpt from a Dick and Jane storybook, one of the many books used for teaching children how to read. However, the subtext of storybooks like these teach children what is "good," "normal" and "beautiful." A child reading Dick and Jane would learn at a very early age that to be beautiful is to be like Jane, who is white, has blond hair and blue eyes. What is "normal" and "good" is a functional family with time and money on their hands to play cards and bake cookies with their children on rainy days. Morrison criticizes the Dick and Jane storybooks, advocating that real life is more complicated than what is presented in these fairytale books, and not every family or person fits into a precise mold of "good" or "beautiful" according to societal standards. 

                                           

Throughout her novel, Morrison selects sentences from the Dick and Jane excerpt and places them above the chapters corresponding to the individual characters of the Breedlove family, providing a sharp contrast between real life and the over-simplified, idealized life of the family portrayed in Dick and Jane storybooks. For instance, above the chapter about Pauline Breedlove, the excerpt is:

SEEMOTHERISVERYNICEMOTHERWILLYOUPLAYWITHJANEMOTHERLAUGHSLAUGHMOTHERLA (110). 

However, Pauline certainly does not play with her own daughter Pecola. Instead, she rebuffs Pecola after Pecola accidentally drops a pie on the ground in favor for the little Fisher girl Pauline works for. But in this chapter Morrison also provides us with a detailed background of Pauline's life, not to excuse her behavior towards her daughter, but to make her actions more understandable given what her life has been like. Morrison argues that not every mother can be like the mother in Dick and Jane, but we cannot simply label them as bad mothers because a) a "perfect" mother like the ones in storybooks don't exist and b) we don't know everyone's full history. Pauline's dislike for herself and Pecola's blackness is not due to some biological defect; it is a societal construction. Pauline has learned through the movies to equate "physical beauty with virtue," therefore collecting her "self-contempt by the heap" (122). Thus, her self-hatred for her herself and her race extends towards her daughter and her husband, which is why she neglects her family in favor for the Fisher family.