Reconsidering our image of Beauty

These last days on photo.net i've been trying to reconsider beauty a

bit...

 

Nobody looks like the Image we are shown... It's not even

healthy. But millions of women worlwide paint themselves, stare

themselves, even have medical operations to live up to social

standards of beauty. Who sets these standards? They do - they, the

fasion and image industries, with their magazine covers, "miracle"

diets, and synthetically engineered celebrities.

 

Why is this their best interest? First, insecurity sells. The

more unreachable the standards they set for us, the worse we'll feel

about ourselves, and the more of their products we'll think we need.

Second, it's important that they keep us thinking of ourselves as a

body, first and foremost. All our images of women as bodies, from

classical art to twentieth century perfume advertisements, conspire

to make us think this way. If we conceive of ourselves as a body, and

we measure our own value as such, then we'll believe it is their body

accessories we need most of all to be happy... not an exciting life,

creative projects, a safe and beautiful world, etc.

 

For the sake of the "beauty" standards, the fashion and image

industries are willing to kill dozens of women with anorexia each

year, to make thousands and thousands more sick with bulimia and

malnutrition, to make women pay thousands of dollars for plastic

surgery and dangerous breasts implants, to make non-white women pay

money for products that will supposedly make them look more like the

white beauty queens, to make millions of women and girls across the

world miserably insecure about their bodies and themselves. And men's

desires are shaped by their conditioning, too, so that we end up

pursuing a glamorous image of "woman" that doesn't exist in reality,

while missing the real beauty right next to us on the streets and in

our homes.

 

Please, what do you think ?

Michael Jackson.

<p>Have you ever seen Frank Cordelle's "The Century Project" exhibit? It chronicals a 100 year span of women's lives, from birth to old age. The women are diverse in age, race, health, and body types. Instead of selling an 'ideal' image of how they should look he presents women as they really are. This exhibit also brings to light the hardships many women face but are often glossed over in society: eating disorders, self-mutilation, physical and sexual abuse, disease. This exhibit is not about physical beauty as it is about truth, and that it itself can be beautiful.

 

<p>I sometimes wish I could be as indiscriminate as Cordelle when it comes to my photography, but I know that I'm not. I have many female friends who come in many different shapes and sizes. All are wonderful people whom I care very much about. Yet when it comes to photography I can be very selective. I'll definitely photograph the women whom I find attractive over the ones I don't. I'll deemhasize physical appearance with my friends, but focus on it in my photography. I guess that makes me a hypocrite?

I think you're overreacting to a certain extent and putting the onus on a convenient monster ie 'the fashion industry'. They're just feeding a desire that's as deepset as any of our other basic human instincts - the desire to be important, or more important than those around us. If there were no fashion industry then people would find some other way to stand out. Humans are never going to be blissful automatons with pure hearts and thoughts - it's just not going to happen.

 

Beauty for women and power for men has been with us forever. Just read some history, any history. It's in every culture in every period.

 

BTW I believe the more modern idea of anorexia is that it's as much of a symptom of a deeper problem rather than being purely the result of western peer and media pressure.

I agree with Andy.

 

In addition to what he said, you have to keep in mind the actual

function of advertising photography. It by necessity must "borrow"

some cachet from somewhere else to sell an image. If it didn't

need to do this, an image of the clothes for sale would be

enough.

 

So, photograph must elevate the product through the use of the

model. Images about healthy well adjusted women don't sell

expensive clothes, they sell the concept of healthy well adjusted

womanhood. Well, that's not what the fashion industry is selling.

They are selling clothes. So, they borrow from the glamour and

the fabulousness that everyone who survived middleschool

wishes they had, and voila. The clothes sell. It's a fantasy.

 

It's a universal phenomenon. African tribeswomen pierce and

stretch their lips and necks to look better to others. The Chinese

bound feet. Tatooing, scarification, and body modification is all

over the place.

 

It is much more complex and deep seated than just blaming the

fashion industry because people feel bad about themselves.

Doing so actually reinforces a sense of helplessness about the

issue, since the fashion industry doesn't seem about to change

suddenly. If you want to blame them, you are stuck. They are a

symptom of a deeper issue.

While I agree with you, I think, industry is just helping us out when we get lazier and lazier (more and more busy, if you prefer). As mentioned above, there's and there always was "body modification everywhere", and it's "biologically ok" to have so, to desire to be different. My point is, once it was done fully by ourselves, (it still is,in some cases), and now, we have other stuff to do so we just buy the products/services. Hence the fake idea that it's the "fashion and image industries" fault. It's ours.

<br>I see it related to other things in "modern life", like new auto-everything cameras, fotosensitive(?) doors etc.

Nicholas

 

A bit more on your question. In your last sentence you said we miss the real beauty next to us in our streets and homes. This really isn't true when you consider that 96% of women wind up in long term relationships. Only a very small fraction of women even come close to the 'ideal' beauty so in reality we are not missing 'real beauty' at all. When it comes to love, ideal beauty becomes insignificant.

Thank you to all of you for contributing to the subject. I realize i was probably over-reacting a bit but i guess you all got my point even if it was not very clear. Once again thank you, all your posts made me think on the matter.

<I>This really isn't true when you consider that 96% of women wind up in long term

relationships.</I><P>I'm curious as to where you came up with this statistic.

I think I might have read it on CNN a couple of years ago. I assume they mean that they were in at least one long-term relationship.

A South American native, who had never seen modern men said to an anthpologist when asked why he decorated his face: "...To make myself different from the animal."

Until the advent of 'Twiggy' who came to us from England, as far as models were concerned they 'statuesque', they could have a 'coke bottle shape', they didn't look like 'waifs', for many in this culture and in fashion Twiggy changed all that, and many models chosen to grace the covers of many magazines would have a 'Twiggy' bodytype.

 

Many models tended to be white until the advent of Naomi Campbell and others, then Black also became beautiful in terms of the fashion world, thin lips used to be the yardstick for beauty, now some folks have their lips injected with whatever, of course there is a standard in western culture of beauty that is very facile, the preference is for the very attractive.

 

'to make non-white women pay money for products that will supposedly make them look more like the white beauty queens'.................................This applied to Black folks years ago, when some folks would 'process' their hair, with lard et all, with the perception of long ago that straight hair was 'better' than 'curly' or 'lightening' cream for the 'lighter brighter you', yes there were actual ads for products which used those words. Black conciousness changed all that, and now you have folks 'filling' out their lips in reverse of what you mentioned, and of course Michael Jackson is another story.

 

It wasn't just Afro American, but Native Americans, Latin Americans, and on and on, I hate seeing one type of woman on magazine covers, buxom women are beautiful, big boned women are beautiful, Oriental women are beautiful, and of course beauty is worldwide, you haven't seen beautiful women 'till you've been to Brazil and I don't think the ones I saw on the beach are spending much time throwing up.

 

Advertisers have targeted men, if you're silly enough to get talked into doubting your virility because of the loss of a few hairs, then you deserve everything you get, when you get into bed with your girfriend/wife and she closes her eyes, believe me a few missing hairs will be the last thing she's thinking about if you are on your 'JOB'. I've got a head of white hair, I get more complements now than when it was black, women have the same choice, they can ignore the pressure to spend to conform to some impossible ideal, they have a choice, and yes many ads play to self hatred or self doubt.

 

The best thing about getting older is it changes your concept of beauty, a few character lines, a wrinkle here or there, become consequential, in fact mean nothing, and it is useless to spend time and money in attempt to make yourself look like anybody else or any younger than you are, it is funny how some folks will accept youth readily but not everything else that comes with life, nobody likes getting old or that we will all die, but you do have the choice of aging gracefully.

The best advice my father gave me a long time ago was....'if you don't care about it, nobody else will'.

i like j-lo's big booty....

Andy wrote:

'Beauty for women and power for men has been with us forever. Just read some

history, any history. It's in every culture in every period.'

 

This is true - on the surface, at least. But beware of anyone's interpretation of

history, including your own, because it can never be MORE than just an interpretation.

 

Power and beauty are some of our current culture's preoccupations. When we look at

whatever meager scraps have survived from past cultures, and try to interpret them,

we are going to do so from our own frame of reference. Our own preoccupations will

determine what we pay attention to and what we ignore when interpreting historical

evidence. We cannot ever really get into the heads of people from the past, and see

things the way they did.

 

Aside from these concerns, though, I agree with your generalization.