The Most Beautiful
Yesterday afternoon while strolling to pass the time in SM City, I passed by a magazine shop and decided to buy a Yes! magazine. I don’t usually buy magazines, let alone a local entertainment one. I do enjoy being updated of what’s going on in the country’s entertainment world from time to time but I don’t really find it worthy enough to spend my money on it. I’d rather splurge on more important informative and semi-entertaining stuff, such as Reader’s Digest when I need to. (Feeling geeky and intellectual, huh?! 🙂 ) The magazine-buying chore is something I leave to other people at home since I don’t yet earn my own money. When it comes to this, I depend on them like a parasite, reading whatever magazine I find at home. But the recent issue of Yes!, which is their annual 100 Most Beautiful Stars list caught my attention. I’m a sucker for this kind of things, AKA People magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People list. This kind of things really interest me and definitely floats my entertainment awareness boat.
What made me more intrigued is the fact that Judy Ann Santos is on the cover of the 100 Most Beautiful Stars issue. You see, my cousin Dennis and my boyfriend Flip have been teasing me for a while now that I’m a die hard Juday fan. It’s not that I really am, I just admire her for being different from most movie stars in such a way that she proves that succeeding in such business as showbizness is not all about having the best physical assets. I see her as someone atypical, going against all the ideal odds of people that movie stars have to be beauty goddesses and that true talent can just come second. Her hard work through the years, her undeniable natural acting skills and true beauty on the inside became her indestructible success weapons and eventually made her not only worthy to be on this list but on the top as well.
Not that I want to talk all about Judy Ann Santos; What I really want to vent upon is how right I think of Yes! magazine to choose her to represent the other 99 most beautiful stars. The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jo-Ann Q. Maglipon says in her Ed’s note:
We call her the girl with the It Quality—the girl with the special something that sets her apart from the traditionally prettier, fairer, taller, leaner stars around. And she is our choice to represent all the 99 other beautiful people we have chosen from showbiz.
Most people usually have this apprehension of the word "beautiful" as a reference to a knock out, like someone with perfect DNA. They become oblivious to the fact that beautiful does not just mean a pretty or handsome face, but a kind and good heart as well. In fact I’m rooting more on the side that represents the genuinely good-hearted people who are not that physically well-gifted, but are considered beautiful. I’m thankful that I’m aware and believe that true beauty is something abstract; It’s what’s inside a person’s heart.
As expected, my relatives at home questioned and even mocked the fact that Judy Ann Santos is on the magazine cover that says 100 Most Beautiful Stars. Ai-Ai delas Alas is also on the list, as a box-office comedienne, among the obviously physically-beautiful stars and my cousin said that she shouldn’t have been included. It annoys me how shallow most people’s perception of beauty is. And I’m grateful for Yes! magazine that they had this kind of list that represents the most beautiful stars because they’re showing and somehow educating the public that true beauty is not skin-deep.
YES! chooses the stars it finds beautiful – for sheer DNA, because their face, body, skin, and statistics fall under today’s conventions of beauty; for attitude, because they project a confidence and aura that bring them all the way to the front of the line; for accomplishment, because they create something grand or promising out of talent, skill, training, and opportunity; and for the pure pleasure of their company, because they succeed in being the entertainers we most enjoy.
I’m glad that among the shallow and judgmental minds of most Filipinos when it comes to beauty, Yes! magazine has an exceptional editorial staff that came up with the 100 Most Beautiful Stars list. I hope it shows people that being beautiful is not just all about having the flawless face or the perfect body.