Scars and Art: A metaphor for society

Georges Boulos

Scars and Art

          What are scars? A remnant from skin, your flesh and muscle, rendered and torn, leaving nothing but some hideous deformity or discoloration in your skin once it has healed. That is a common conception. Society shows magazines with scantily clad women and men, covered in makeup, airbrushed, using only whichever camera lenses, angles and lighting make them look the absolute best. We are shown the ‘Hollywood’ version of perfection, actors and models that make up far less than one percent of the world, and we are pressured to look that way and act and dress as they do. This is the reality of our society. So how these would admires of these magazines, of this illusion of society, look at the women of the Scars Program? Would they see an operation such as a mastectomy as a lifesaving necessity or would they call it a mark on the beauty that is expected of women. Most people do not have the capacity to see scars as beautiful, to see the meaning behind the marks, and as people cannot literally or figuratively see scars with any sort of beauty, then, except to the few who make the attempt to see and expand their vision, the program will be seen in the same way.

             Our society’s vision of beauty has changed. How can we ask people to see scars as beautiful or as having a beautiful meaning if people cannot appreciate what has been considered traditionally beautiful for centuries? If not for our class and few other groups such as our being guided through then the art museum would have been largely devoid of life. People aren’t independently venturing to places, such as the museum of fine arts, to look at beautiful things. We have come to a world where we are so used to instant gratification with the use of Google and other information sights, our social media, television and the pressures it has invaded our rooms, homes and places of leisure with. It has brought us to a time where we are now quick to judge and due to the availability of information, we don’t take the time to understand. Only a few people today look at a painting, a Picasso, a Rembrandt, Monet, and don’t see beauty or value, either intrinsic or extrinsic, the rest don’t see beauty at all.

                Don’t pity the women of the Scar’s project, they are strong, have endured through constant tribulations, and made decisions that would adversely affect their lives in ways that most will never have to consider. Pity the rest of the world, the youth, my and our peers and constituents for they are the ones who are losing out in life. If I was forced to make the decision of losing a part of myself that endeared me to my peers, who are fleeting anyways in every aspect of their attachment to my life, or if I could have my eyes opened to how much beauty exists everywhere, in lighting, shading, brushstrokes, photographs, nature, the city, buildings and lack thereof, and every overlooked minuscule aspect of life, then give me the scar. Let the world think I’m deformed and give me the ability to look among that world, see what my accusers ignore as they look ill upon me, and see life and beauty.