America the Beautiful is a kick to the gut delivered with all the subtly and grace of a belligerent slap to the face. It’s painful, difficult to watch and seldom very pleasant. For a documentary, it also doesn’t say a darn thing that’s new or that we (at least the more astute and perceptive of us) don’t already know.

Can you find the 12-year-old in this picture?

You know what I say to that? Who cares. This is as engrossing a piece of investigative filmmaking as we’ve seen this year, and as hard as much of it is to stomach sometimes medicine that turns your tongue purple and makes you gag uncontrollably is just what you need to fix what ails you.

And what might that be? Image. It seems like, more than ever, image is now everything, especially in the United States. We’re not sexy if we’re not a size two. We’re not worthy unless we’re carrying the latest Prada handbag. We’re not worth caring about if we’re not wearing makeup. We’re not worth loving if we’re not beautiful.

While that’s the same for everyone, male or female, for women these pressures seem to be amplified by the power of ten. It’s like we’ve been transplanted into some weird Stepford universe where the strides of the last thirty-plus years have been singularly undone by the rise of reality television and paparazzi-fueled info-tainment. We’re wannabe Barbie Dolls living in a world with only so much plastic, everyone looking to build the perfect dollhouse even if they don’t quite know why.

Director Darryl Roberts took two years crisscrossing the country examining the phenomenon speaking with people as diverse as The Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler, E! Entertainment Channel’s Ted Casablanca, comedian Martin Short, heiress Paris Hilton and CosmoGirl! editor-in-chief Susan Schulz. He asks them if America has an unhealthy obsession with beauty. Their responses, by and large, are not very surprising.

But the heart and soul of the picture doesn’t involve them at all. Instead it revolves around a young girl, Gerren Taylor, who at 12-years-old found herself a supermodel. Booking runway shows left and right for clients as heavy-hitting as Marc Jacobs and Tommy Hilfiger, she and her mother are the reason to watch this film, the ones whose actions speak volumes about our current cultural fascination with image and celebrity. It is a heartbreaking devolution of a youngster’s soul, and seeing this playful spirit turn into a heartbroken body-obsessed teen infuriated me more then I can even put into words.

Not that anything here should come as a surprise. Like I said before, most of us know all of this already, we just choose to look the other way. I know I’m just as frustrated with my own body as the next girl, and there are days when I get so down on myself about my looks I just want to stay home and cry. It’s a vicious circle of knowing the problem and refusing to do anything about it because we still want so desperately to attain that vision of what Madison Avenue and Hollywood calls beauty for ourselves. It’s also one I don’t see ending anytime soon.

This is both a blessing and curse for a film like America the Beautiful. I want people to see it, I’m just not entirely sure they’re actually going to learn anything. We’ve become safely ensconced in our vacuous timidity, and the only wake up call that’s probably going to do any of us any good is one that strikes tragically closer to home.

Be that as it may, this is an important documentary and one I’m happy to see getting a release. Here’s just hoping that people actually take the time to see it so they can agree.

Film Rating: êêê (out of 4) 

Additional Links:

-  America the Beautiful Theatrical Trailer