In Roxane Gay’s text, I Once Was Miss America, the author discusses the ways in which she lived emotionally through the book series Sweet Valley High, being a deep-rooted source of the way Gay viewed the life around her. As a child, she set her expectations of beauty and popularity based on the Wakefield twins depicted in the novel and dreamed of a life as perfect and predictable as theirs. This occurs similarly within the community of young, reckless, and insecure teenagers that all long to be viewed as “beautiful” and to be given a source of attention. However, one’s concept of beauty can be much different from another’s perception, leading to the discovery of the unnatural nature of novels people read as children that overgeneralize the “basic” concepts of beauty, such as platinum blonde hair, tan skin, and a slim figure. Although being knowledgeable of these unrealistic fantasies, communities continue to feed into the making of these books, movies, and songs, looking for holes to imaginatively fill and to provide mental comfort of living in their fantasies. The author uses Sweet Valley High as an escape to her real life where she feels resented and unwanted by the popular kids, being surrounded by a sea of judgmental people. However, Gay uses the first black Miss America winner, Vanessa Williams, and the original Sweet Valley series as a source of inspiration and motivation to strive her to be the best version of herself and to not let others look down on her and weaken her confidence or self-love. This series of books strengthened her outlook on others and made her aware of the undeniably unrealistic nature of popular kids in fiction novels, which allowed her to succeed in life and create an Oscar-winning screen-play.
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