BEAUTY STANDARDS ?
My mother enrolled my siblings and I in a local fashion show contest, the prize being a model for local advertisement. I was a cerebral and curious little girl that enjoyed being outside.
When we arrived at the contest I remember the potent cologne scent from the judges, made my throat itch. When it was my turn to “strut my stuff”, I shuffled down the runway with my head down and hands clasped too shy to look at anyone. Apparently, this minimal, ahh paired down, dare I say introverted approach was just ahead of its time.
I didn’t get a prize.
However, the Adams family name did prevail with dignity my sister and brother were chosen for a local grocery store advertisement. The day of the shoot I was dragged along, against my 6-year-old will-- to watch my siblings model. They pretend smiled and pretend laughed to the camera, with pretend parents, I remember feeling indifferent about not being chosen to pretend, me and my imaginary friends did that already. The cameraman shouted, “ that’s a wrap” in a boisterous voice, standing to stretch his limbs. He raised his arms above his head in a great lion-like yawn, showing off the lovely plumber gut that he was fashioning that season. It’s very in apparently. He walked over to the snack table which was conveniently where my mother and I were standing. He looked at me and said “WOW!! and who is this? You are such a pretty little girl” his face and voice seemed like they were going to engulf me with their vastness. I hid behind my mother’s leg, as a shield. They continued talking about me, for a while and finally, the man kneeled down to me and asked “what do you want to be when you grow up” after a couple of shy beats, I answered: “A dentist, like my mommy and daddy”. My mother and the man’s body completely deflated with sheer disappointment, they were upset that I didn’t play along and say what they wanted to hear. What I should have said is “I want to be a model”? But, why?
Why were these adults upset after my response? When that cameraman at the photoshoot told me I was pretty it was the first time I had understood being pretty was something of value. This thing called beauty was somehow important. To this day as a 20-year-old female, I still have so many unanswered questions about beauty. What even is beauty? Why is there power in beauty?
My analytical observation of beauty, more precisely physical ( or aesthetic) beauty, begins with the ego--- hopefully you will understand why in a moment. The ego is abstract, it is a social convention that is created by the duality of your own and others conscious and subconscious. I think the ego is an illusion built on futility. It is a construct of ideas, no different from the idea that cold means the lack of hot. It is an agreed idea of which we bounce off of each other and somehow come to some sort of image of ourselves. So, if the ego is an abstraction to create an image then what is an image? The image is the expression of a defined ego. This is where the word beauty comes back. Much like the ego, beauty is a construction of ideas, crafted by society to define ideal aesthetics to attract the attention of the same or opposite gender. Beauty is one of those “tools” which are defined by the ego to create an image of yourself. The difference with beauty is it’s not being decided by you but with you… or at least some of us. As it seems, someone(s) is creating these standards or ideas of what beauty is. In a given period of time, a trend will surge until another trend comes to take its place. Who is deciding this, and how much influence do you (singularly) have to define it? Lastly, how much power collectively should we give this tool.
Starting the narrative there. Until next post!
peace and love