By Genevieve Burgess | Music | July 13, 2014 |
By Genevieve Burgess | Music | July 13, 2014 |
Colbie Caillat has released a new video for her song “Try” where she and several other women start the video in full makeup and hair, and slowly peel back the layers of artifice until they end the video with bare, smiling faces. A lot of coverage of the video and song are focusing purely on the anti-makeup message, but looking at the lyrics Caillat actually asks listeners if they like themselves which seems like a more powerful message.
The song addresses different social pressures young women face, and at the beginning the repeated line is “Do they like you?” before changing later to “Do you like you?” Maybe it’s because I happen to be someone who doesn’t wear makeup on a day to day basis, but I find the message of self-acceptance and self-love more important than the usual platitudes about being beautiful without makeup. Though it is always nice to see women in pop culture willing to show what they look like without the usual enhancements and retouching.