Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” is an iconic music video. Released in 2002, the song was the second single from her image-shifting album Stripped, a raw soulful ballad which followed the attention-grabbing first single “Dirty”.

With lyrics centred around insecurity, self-esteem and inner beauty, the video shone a highlight on the people affected by society’s strict beauty standards, and people outside of and rejected by the mainstream. Touching on themes from eating disorders and body image to sexuality, the video won a GLAAD Media Award for its positive portrayal of gay and transgender people. Now, to mark its twentieth anniversary, Aguilera has released an updated version of the music video.

“The film was a celebration of courage and self-love. It was an act of resistance, a love letter, a signal for change in the way in which we perceive beauty,” says SMUGGLER director Fiona Jane Burgess, who was tasked by Aguilera with reimagining the video for 2022. Growing up in rural England, pre-internet in a house without MTV, Burgess only caught glimpses of music videos when at her friends’ houses, but this one stuck along with her and had a profound impact. 

“It showed me things that I knew but had never seen on screen before: a young girl overcoming her battle with anorexia, a young boy confronting his body dysmorphia, gay men kissing, a person in drag,” she says. “It gave me inspiration and motivation to know that I could possibly be different on the earth, and my voice mattered.”

Unlike the unique video which featured a various range of ages, the 2022 version keeps its give attention to children, as Burgess was keen to explore the ways the sweetness industry and social media are impacting people at younger and younger ages. “Greater than half of women and one-third of boys ages six to eight are unhappy with their body weight. And greater than 80 per cent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being ‘fat’. That is heartbreaking,” she says. 

There’s been a 50 per cent increase in reported self-injury amongst teenagers since 2009, and by the point they reach 17, 78 per cent of women within the US are unhappy with their weight. “The way in which we’re taught to view and value ourselves as children affects the way in which we view ourselves as adults,” she says. “With this film, I used to be all in favour of exposing the ways we, as a society, inadvertently expose children and teenagers to damaging body ideals.” 

We spoke to Burgess concerning the impact of the unique music video, and the way she desired to update it for 2022.

What was the cultural impact of the unique video for “Beautiful”?

Fiona Jane Burgess: I feel like the unique video set Christina other than her peers. It felt so vulnerable and raw and brave for an artist to reflect themes of depression, isolation and body shame, in addition to make a transparent statement about unachievable beauty standards portrayed in mainstream media. It confronted taboo topics and shone a lightweight on very relatable struggles. 

Also as a female pop star, Christina was sending a transparent message to the world; that girls can create work that’s socially conscious and questions the image and perception of traditionally marginalised groups inside mainstream culture.

If you first began enthusiastic about making a new edition of “Beautiful”, how did you would like to update it for 2022?

Fiona Jane Burgess: With this re-release, I desired to create a movie that feels as emotional, provocative and fearless as its predecessor. 20 years ago social media didn’t exist. Once I take into consideration how the sweetness industry and society as an entire have modified within the last 20years, the web is by far the most important monumental shift. 

Young persons are experiencing and understanding the world in ways we didn’t, for instance via influencers and content creators, and so they are also those most susceptible to being exploited by it. It is rather difficult to supervise children’s online activity, and with this film, I wanted to spotlight the hazards of this, in addition to how young persons are starting to react and reject what they’re being told (and sold).

“We’re making a cultural environment where it’s normal to wish you looked different not directly, to want to alter something about ourselves” – Fiona Jane Burgess

When the unique video got here on the market was no social media. To what extent do you’re thinking that social media is answerable for the rise in eating disorders, self-harm and body image issues that we’re seeing now? 

Fiona Jane Burgess: I feel it will be too simplistic to suggest that social media is solely answerable for the rise in mental health issues we’re seeing in young people, but for a few years I’ve worked in an adolescent psychiatric unit as a drama facilitator, so I’ve seen first-hand the fact for a lot of young people who find themselves fighting mental health issues and its relationship to their online existence, in order that’s why this seems like a very poignant concept for this video.

With this film, I desired to explore the stress between progression versus regression by way of beauty standards and the way our cultural relationship to it has evolved within the last twenty years. On the one hand, body positivity has had a radical impact, with activists fighting to make the sweetness industry a much more welcoming space with more diversity on runways and on our screens, reflecting an acceptance and celebration of difference. 

But alternatively, there was an enormous surge in self-harm, body dysmorphia and alterations, cosmetic surgery, and a complete generation of teenagers wanting to appear to be the filters on their phone screens, a form of Kardashian effect. Who knows to what extent social media is responsible, but I feel the correlation between the 2 is undeniable.

Do you’re thinking that beauty standards are worse now than they’ve ever been?

Fiona Jane Burgess: Only time will tell. I feel there’s a type of tug-of-war happening in the sweetness industry, and that’s having a confusing and complex wider cultural impact. I feel we’re definitely starting to see more inclusion and acceptance of body diversity inside certain areas of economic promoting and inside the fashion and wonder industries at large, nonetheless, I feel that is in direct conflict with the hyper-perfect presentations of self we see online and still exist in most mainstream promoting. The rise in self-harm and cosmetic surgery speaks for itself. Up to now 18 years, the variety of cosmetic procedures for men has increased by greater than 273 per cent and the variety of cosmetic procedures for girls has increased by greater than 429 per cent.

What worries me is that I feel we’re making a cultural environment where it’s normal to wish you looked different not directly, to want to alter something about yourself, to perpetually feel inadequate and less-than. Despite a growing inclusion of plus-size models and activists, for instance, I worry that it’s easier to feel bad about yourself than it’s to feel good. One study found using social media for as little as half-hour a day can negatively change the way in which young women view their very own bodies. Nearly 80 per cent of young teenage girls report fears of becoming fat.

It’s hard to know whether that is worse than it has been in previous generations, but after I take into consideration my childhood growing up without social media, I feel like I definitely wasn’t very aware of my body or my self-image, in a positive way. I feel the issue is that it’s inconceivable for youngsters to avoid social media nowadays, and it’s normal to use filters to edit the way in which you look, for instance. I can’t imagine what impact this may have had on me, because I don’t remember feeling particularly self-conscious or self-aware until my body began to alter and develop, and even then there have been no smartphones or selfies. It’s hard to know if things will get well or worse from here, but I feel we’re already starting to see the impact.