BEAUTY AS CONSTRUCT

What constitutes beauty? Somehow we can't precisely define it although we immediately know if something is beautiful when we perceive it. But we don't only have our own notion of beauty, which is dependent on our very personal senses; there is another one that is taught to us by culture. Whenever we consider someone beautiful at a first glance it is because of the outward beauty of the body. Usually, it is the face that appeals to us by one means or another. Of course beauty is also on the inside but this kind of beauty is - as far as I can see - detached from the cultural construct of external beauty, which I want to talk about.

 
Last year's L'Oréal campaign with the overly retouched Julia Roberts caused a big stir in the UK, which led to the ban of the ad. The issue was that her face looked far too unblemished after the Photoshop makeover.

No wrinkles, no rings under the eyes. The ad wants to make believe that Lancôme's product "Teint Miracle" makes Julia Roberts' face flawlessly perfect. In fact we have to thank Photoshop for this. Politics were concerned about the unrealistic portrayal of beauty this ad conveys, especially in view of the increasing amount of eating disorders in the past 15 years. Additionally, in this case everybody knows that the world-famous celebrity Julia Roberts does not really look like that.

Here is the real 42-year-old Julia Roberts:

Why does the media fool us like this? It's pointless. For her age, she is still a very beautiful woman. To me, the makeover (in all ads) just reveals that the beauty image the media serves us and we strive for is basically a generally accepted illusion. But nonetheless people fall for those illusions, break because of the lies they are told. Lies, that's what it is. A digitally enhanced beauty ideal that is unattainable. Neither cosmetic surgery nor any kind of magic cure is able to erase the signs of time in our faces and on our bodies. We can't modify ourselves in the same way Photoshop can. Wouldn't it be dull if we all were the same?

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Sources:

The Daily Activist

Skinny vs Curvy