Real Bodies at the Beach

I’m a big fan of ads of models as is without the benefit of airbrushing or Photoshop. I love getting to see what they actually look like instead of what they look like as space aliens and shapeshifters from another planet. Until this weekend, I never thought about how that also translates beyond the body and to a sense of place.

My kids and I were at Santa Monica Beach. Arguably, Santa Monica Beach— by either laziness or just proximity –is over photographed and overly featured in film courtesy of the southern California film industry’s need to keep things in budget and to not venture too far away from home.

But when we see Santa Monica Beach in photographs and in film we see tall blondes without stomachs, without wrinkles, without cellulite. Group shots at the beach that signify you are in southern California insist on a certain look. You’d never know that Los Angeles is the largest Korean city outside Seoul, the largest Armenian city or one of largest Latin American cities in the world. You’d never know we have old people and homeless people at the beach either.

Those tall blonde women with some muscles and no fat, wrinkles, or sunburns don’t exist. Or maybe they exist in the way that endangered species or unicorns exist.

What and who did I see at the beach this weekend with its 94 degrees in the shade sunshine and unusually high humidity level?

The first woman I saw had a bikini on, true. But she had a nice well-lived in body with a roll of living right above her bathing suit. She had wrinkles on her face (comes from being a sun worshipper, you know) and her thighs had some tone but there were parts of her thighs that looked sinewy and loose. And. She. Looked. Happy. She was probably in her sixties. In a bikini. That was awesomeness in and of itself. But what was greatest about her was that she was just one of hundreds I saw that day, being themselves and letting it all hang out, proudly.

But there was so much more.  I heard seven different languages spoken. I saw a diversity of bathing suits. Those of us who were bigger were not in hiding. Those of us who were smaller did not appear smug. No, I wasn’t dreaming either.

I came away a little sad that the rest of the country has this falsified sense of who Californians are.  The film industry has  rendered us white, five foot ten, and English only speaking, and thin, with just enough thigh muscle to wrap around the average porn addict and too much money. Honestly, we aren’t that at all.

Okay, so we do eat raw food and do yoga and we don’t think twice and spend 4 bucks for a cup of coffee but really we do come in all shapes and sizes–and that’s a good thing.