The highlight of our Gendered Nonverbal Communication unit was our discussion about beauty standards for both men and women. This issue is something that I have grappled with throughout my own adolescence and has been an interest of study within my venture further into academia. As a mixed race woman of color, I often struggled to fit into one box or another, often finding that I am “too black” for one or “not black enough” for another. The beauty standards that I have been expected to follow are not cohesive to the body and features that I have been born with, which has caused many years of frustration. These unrealistic ideals have created a conflict with wanting to fit in and also wanting to stand out. There were very limited representations of African American women that I felt truly were relevant or relatable to me. This lack of seeing myself in the media has resulted in me aspiring to misguided notions of beauty, however, I have also learned that I am not alone in this struggle. Even the models, themselves, do not look the way they appear in advertisements. Cindy Crawford is quoted as saying, “ Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.” For one of the most influential and trailblazing models of our lifetime to admit that she does not even look like this image that she has been photoshopped into, is saying something.
There is a constant bombardment of images of photoshopped and unrealistic ideals that feeds this insatiable desire to attempt achieve these standards. However, the beauty industry thrives off of our failure to achieve and profits billions of dollars each year on our insecurities. As discussed, the notions of beauty are photoshopped, tucked, snipped, and airbrushed. The message we are receiving loud and clear, is that the bodies and features we are born with are just a discardable and unsuitable foundation for what we, as a society, should look like. What I found to be most interesting about this unit is the pressure that men are facing to adhere to these “standards.” |
In this first clip, a group of average looking men get photoshopped into what they believe is the ideal man. They are open and honest about their insecurities and the inescapable comparison to others around them. One man confesses that he is afraid that he will like his photoshopped body more than his actual one. Our ideas of beauty and handsomeness have warped self acceptance and our self esteems.
There is an article that I had found online from Harper's Bazaar that highlighted 74 makeup free celebrity selfies and the caption underneath the slideshow read, "There is something already pretty personal about celebrities sharing selfies with their fans on Instagram, but how about when they snap themselves sans makeup and hit the upload button? These celebrities and models took to Instagram without the help of their makeup artists, capturing their beauty in a whole new way. See who chose to bare it all—with the help of their filter of choice, of course."
Although, we have educated ourselves on the ways these companies market their beauty campaigns, I am seeing more and more female celebrities “fighting back” by posting “makeup free/natural selfies” and are being revered as brave and courageous for showing their flaws or "capturing their beauty in a whole new way". I find this praise to be hilarious and ridiculous because God forbid we show our actual faces to the world and still be considered attractive! However, this author still can't believe that these women would bare it all, so she ends her quote by insinuating that these women would still need to pick a filter because they are still not good enough. |