Why Was It So Important That Alicia Keys and Alessia Cara Didn’t Wear Makeup To MTV’s Major Award Show?

Historically speaking, there is nothing more powerful than making a pop culture statement while attending MTV’s VMA red carpet, right? Whether showing up in a meat dress, using a foam finger as an erotic prop, or swapping spit with an iconic songstress, using the youthful platform to bring attention and awareness to certain social issues or as a way of highlighting an individual’s right for artistic expression, has always been a bigger part of the show.

Without a single stitch of makeup upon their faces, both Alicia Keys and Alessa Cara gave #slay a whole new meaning when it comes to au natural beauty with mass appeal. Or did they?

While many viewers and media trolls savagely attacked the soulful R&B vocalist and musician, as they were extremely under-impressed with her choice to go bare-face, Alicia Keys is yet another celebrity to prove the age old adage, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The scrutiny may have been intense, but she stands by her purpose.

Her highly publicized personal essay in Lenny Letter earlier this summer received tremendous amounts of criticism. Yet among all of the negativity, many women felt not only empowered by her honesty and confidence, but also made the choice to stand by her declaration of true and authentic beauty. The feature chronicled her own insecurities which had developed over the years, as well as her personal experience handling the harsh and heavy focus on her physical appearance. Even after the 15-time Grammy winner was catapulted into the limelight for her unsurpassed talent, she could never escape the ongoing and immense pressures forced upon women to achieve the nearly impossible standards behind the ideal aesthetic, caused by unrealistic filters.

“Every time I left the house, I would be worried if I didn’t put on makeup,” she wrote. “What if someone wanted a picture?? What if they POSTED it??? These were the insecure, superficial, but honest thoughts I was thinking. And all of it, one way or another, was based too much on what other people thought of me.”- Keys

Since her published words made headlines, Alicia has kept her commitment to not wearing any makeup in public. And guess what? The gorgeous creature radiated with glamour regardless of a lack of lip-plumper. Hours of hair and makeup just for a few moments in front of the camera? Nah, she’s good!

Her embraced undertaking of a makeup free movement has given her a new found freedom with countless women shouting “YASSSSSSSS” to her pledge. She feels she has a responsibility to young women to help them to understand that their worth goes beyond an hour-glass silhouette and sculpted contour.

Joining in her efforts, Cara vowed to remove all of her warpaint while performing her hit song “Scars to Your Beautiful.” She insights, “We all look at ourselves in the mirror and think, I hate this, I wish that were different—from something minor like, ‘I have a pimple today,’ to something major like, ‘I don’t want to live anymore because I don’t think I’m good enough,’” Cara told Glamour in their upcoming September issue. “In ‘Scars,’ I wanted to tell people, ‘There isn’t one way to look beautiful—you are beautiful, and it’s the world that needs to change.’ ”

I know what you are all thinking… It’s easy to go makeup-free without feeling self-conscious when you look like them!

But in all seriousness, God forbid a woman doesn’t wear concealer or have extended lashes on that make her look like a doe-eyed Bambi. She must be judged now! She does not deserve respect! The public even uses words like “brave” to describe the shocking sentiment. How sad and scary is that?

2016 is the year the Twilight Zone had warned us about, women are all striving to look exactly the same. The only definition of beauty that I leave you with is, “In a world full of Dash dolls, be an Alicia Keys.”