Dear Felicity Smoak...
- Erica Chau
- Nov 7, 2016
- 2 min read
Dear Felicity Smoak: Thank you for wearing glasses.
I’ve worn glasses for as long as I can remember. The first thing I do every morning is reach over and palm around for my glasses, even before I open my eyes. It still baffles me that some people can just wake up in the morning and just SEE. Or that some people actually FORGET their glasses - don’t you realize that you can’t see?
But wearing glasses is more than just a mild inconvenience sometimes: when it’s raining, when I go for hotpot, when I try to cuddle with my boyfriend and they squish against my face…. But mostly, they make me feel ugly.
It’s actually turned into a movie trope- one that happens, we all see, but probably not brought to the attention [awareness] of the non-glasses-wearing population until a recent Buzzfeed article. All rom-com fans know: the nerdy girl with glasses get the boy at the end of the movie… but not until she loses her glasses and magically becomes beautiful.
Enter: Felicity Smoak. For those unfamiliar with our Arrow heroine, Felicity Smoak (portrayed by the beautiful Emily Bett Rickhards) is genius MIT-grad hacker extraordinaire and the supporting force behind DC’s Green Arrow and his team.
She’s smart, beautiful, well dressed, and brave beyond compare. Her courage, bravery, and humanity are clear from the start. Alongside her curiosity, creativity, integrity, and technical skill, she is above all a regular human girl with insecurities, worries, and isn’t afraid to state her opinions. A powerful feminist in my books for sure and definitely feels REAL. But you know what else she is? She’s someone who wear GLASSES.
And because good people deserve happy endings, she gets the guy (spoiler: she doesn’t lose her amazing self in a guy… and isn’t stuck with the one guy you know the show sets her up to be with. Because that’s not how real-life works). But the BEST part? She doesn’t magically lose her glasses in the process. Because, just like in real life, why would she? Love cures near-sightedness? Love conquers all? Love overpowers... science?
She continues to kick ass, is still the genius hacker-girl, and continues to wears her glasses because she still needs to SEE. She still hacks into CCTV cameras and continues to support her team, but doesn’t magically have 20/20 vision or starts wearing contacts. Staring at screens all day, fighting crime all night - dry eyes and contacts falling out just doesn’t seem practical.
Thank you, Felicity, for wearing glasses and for being yourself, and for showing that women don’t need to give up their VISION just to get their happy ending. Because of course, it’s only ever the girl who needs to lose her glasses to be beautiful. When was the last time a guy had to compromise vision to attain love?
So, Felicity, thank you. From all of us 4-eyed girls, thank you. Thank you for showing the absurdity that movies have normalized. Thank you for opening our eyes to the fact that we don't need to lose our glasses to be beautiful.
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