A Smiley Gap

I was watching this clip on the Australian Screen website from a 1973 TV program called Chequerboard-It's a Big Day In Any Girl's Life. A bride-to-be talks about her upcoming wedding.  I noticed that she has a gap in her teeth. Her smile kind of looks like Anna Paquin's.

Sookie Stackhouse is the hot thing right now. And not just for me, although I'm actually currently wearing a t-shirt that says I'd Turn Gay for Sookie Stackhouse.  

This article says that Paquin may have contributed to a trend in imperfect smiles. Some dentists are saying that people are beginning to prefer natural looking smiles rather than fake-looking perfect smiles. I like that.

I have little stains on one of my teeth. Its tiny, and hardly noticeable. I kind of like it, and see no reason to change it.  Several years ago, the dentist repeatedly offered to fix it for me.

No, thank you.  

It's not as cute as Anna Paquin's gap, but hey.....I'll take what I got.

I googled tooth gap, and found this dental website.  They offer advise on various ways to fix teeth gaps.  Nowhere (as far as I can see) do they suggest that people perhaps accept themselves the way they are. 

It all actually reminds me of my own wedding. A few weeks (or maybe months?) before the event, we had friends come to visit. I think I was about 128 pounds at the time.  That's about 58 kilos. My weight was in a very healthy range. My dress fit fine.  All was well. The well-meaning friend suggested I go on this extremist fad diet so I could drop some pounds before the wedding. I don't think she said, Hey you should go on this diet. She wasn't rude about it.  It was more along the lines of telling me there was this diet available that could help me. 

It was like the dentist thing.

My feeling is...if I ASK someone's advice about how to change my looks, I'd appreciate them helping me.  But this unsolicited push to have us change ourselves is annoying.  The thing is, though....our insecurity over our looks brings in a shitload of money for some people. There's a whole lot of industry out there, dependent on us being unsatisfied with our looks. Now I'm not saying I have a problem with all beauty products. I like make-up.  I use hair gel to make my hair less frizzy.  Every few months I dye my hair. I think a little bit of enhancing is fine. I think it's nice to want to pretty ourselves up a bit. I think it's NOT good, though, when entities push us to use their products and services by encouraging us to believe we're ugly and/or defective.   

Anna Paquin is awesome.