Well, Honey, Now You're "Everybody's Fool"

Hey Everyone

     So another one of my favorite bands is Evanescence. I grew up listening to them and I have always loved them. Evanescence is an American rock band (also referred to as gothic rock or, as they say, "epic, dramatic, dark rock") that started in 1995. They've had three full length albums and another DVD/CD combination. They have released 11 singles since they made it big in 2002.
     This song, "Everybody's Fool" has always been one of my favorites. It's from their first big album, "Fallen" and was released on June 7, 2004 as a single. Amy has said that this song was inspired by her little sister's love of pop music idols such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. She has said regarding its inspiration:

"My little sister was really getting into these, I don't want to offend anyone, but like really fake, cheesy, slutty female cracker-box idols, and it really pissed me off. She started dressing like them and she was like 8 years old. So I gave her the talk and I wrote a song." She later revealed that the song was written for American pop singers Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera adding, "At this point, everybody knows that Britney is fake. The song is not about Britney Spears; it's about a lot of people in this industry. It's so fake, the whole Hollywood thing. 'Look at how perfect I am!' Nobody looks like that. It's all fake and it's really hurting a lot of girls' and women's self images. Where are all the normal people?"

I think Amy tries really hard to just be herself and considers herself one of the "normal people". I mean, I don't ever hear about her in the tabloids.
 

     So now the song. And the lyrics here. They're some really bold lyrics. And they're some really true lyrics. Most of what we see in magazines and on the internet is FAKE. Even the photos of stars "without makeup" are airbrushed and photoshopped to no end. Women all over this country and all over the world are looking to these false idols and comparing themselves needlessly. "Oh I need to dye my hair to match Jennifer Aniston" "Oh I wish I looked more like Scarlett Johannson." Well the images that we have of these women are fake. And yet we think badly of ourselves for not looking like perfect little dressed up barbie dolls that are still in their packages. Well Amy Lee is right. NOBODY looks like that. So why hold ourselves to a false standard? Why wish to be anything but who you are? Beautiful should be whatever you personally think it should be. And you should be your own kind of beautiful. These stars that we idolize so much, just like Amy says, have everyone fooled. There are some good ones out there, I believe. But most of these "perfect women" never were and never will be. There is no perfect woman. So stop comparing yourself to some girl you see on T.V. with the perfect body and perfect hair. She doesn't exist.

I think that one of Amy's most successful ways of getting this song and this message out there is through the music video for this song. Wikipedia describes it perfectly:

 Before the music begins, Lee appears with blond hair, a baby-blue blouse and a long white skirt and emerges from the kitchen holding a fresh-from-the-oven frozen pizza, in a TV commercial. She presents the pizza to her family and, as the camera zooms in for a close-up, the brand name on the pizza box is visible and it is called Lies. "There is nothing better than a good lie," Lee says cheerily, through a smile.Scenes of Lee in her hotel room follow as she removes her makeup. Those scenes are followed by Lee wearing a "luxurious auburn tresses and dangling diamond earrings" as she plays a glamorous spokesmodel who violently scribbles and scratches out her picture in magazines after the photo shoot has finished. She also portrays a motorcycle girl in a commercial who drinks a soft drink called "Lies" that affords its drinker the opportunity to "Be somebody." In a Japanese commercial, she plays a Barbie-like doll with pink hair. Each scene ends with Lee crying. During the bridge, two girls are seen laughing at the model's appearance, stating that she looks much older than they thought she was. Next scene, she is shown in a bathtub singing the song to herself. Another segment shows her breaking a mirror with her bare hand, which starts to bleed uncontrollably. In the final scene, she stands on the balcony of a building, crying and screaming at a billboard featuring one of her advertisements, saying that the model side of her isn't "real and you can't save me", and that the public is oblivious to how she really lives.

You can have the beautiful, glamorous lifestyle. But most of the time, it won't fulfill you. There is always some sort of misery behind the scenes that no one knows. Because when you aren't yourself, you start to lose your sense of self. And then you don't know anything. You don't know who you are anymore or what you want.
     So I guess the message here is to love and be yourself always and not to believe the lies that Hollywood wants us to. You are beautiful because you are uniquely you.
Love to all,
-Autumn the Music Girl