The Truth About ‘Beauty’ In Popular Culture

MIDDLEBURY — Camille Cooper, who has worked professionally in film and television for the past ten years, will give a talk on “What Price Beauty?,” a unique, humorous and insightful look at the media industry’s obsession with thinness and beauty.

The free talk will be at 7:30 pm on Friday, October 19, in Westover School’s Performing Arts Center.

The actress has starred in five motion pictures and more than ten television series, including General Hospital and Knots Landing and has been featured in numerous commercials and print ads. She has been interviewed and photographed for such publications as Premiere, Interview, Egg, and The New York Times, and has appeared on the cover of Working Mother. Ms Cooper also has co-chaired the Committee for Empowerment of Young Women since 1994.

Her dynamic and empowering presentation includes before and after slides that demonstrate how retouching, lighting and camera filters distort the images the viewer sees. In her talk, Ms Cooper lifts the veil of illusion and enables women to discover the truth that the media’s standards of beauty is a fabrication and an ideal that is impossible to attain.

Reservations are available by calling Westover School at 203-577-4535. The school is located at 1237 Whittemore Road (Route 188) in Middlebury and parking and entrance to the Performing Arts Center are both on South Street.

Westover is an independent, college-preparatory, boarding and day school for girls in grades 9 through 12.