I come to my blog to write a bit on an article I saw in The Week while eating stew. It really wasn't an article, more of a blurb. It came from Time.com by Susanna Schrobsdorff's "Must women always be 'hot'?" and it talks about the standardization of beauty in America starting with the international outrage in French Vogue of a ten-year old dolled up with leopard-print stilletto heels and stretched out on a tiger skin. Besides the wave of disgust I had, I think it's safe to say this.
Growing up in a predominantly Irish, German, English and Italian neighbourhood skewed my views of beauty from the time I got into elementary school. Why? Everyone was blonde and fair-skinned. Though I knew I was not fully Chinese, I knew that I was darker than most of my classmates. It made me think that I was lesser than them because I couldn't have fair skin just like them. I was lesser than them because my hair wasn't light and had different shades in them. By third grade, I was content with being the ugly girl; in third grade. Fourth grade came around and I said, "Well, actually, I like how I look! Whatever! I'm not ugly, I just look different."
No matter how a person grows up, they should never grow up to believe at such a young age that they are ugly.
It's not like us as Americans are doing anything to prevent the low self-esteem of the future generations of America. Shows like Toddlers and Tiaras make it seem okay to put your kids through pageants because it's just a "cultural" thing of the South to do. Wrong. When a family sits down to watch television, any young girl watching Toddlers and Tiaras is shown that the only true beauty is to wear makeup and have nice hair at all times. You have to own and wear nice things while being "talented" and not care much about education because others will do your tasks for you.
Commercials are also showing that the only way to be beautiful is by using their product to get long, luscious eyelashes with heavy eyeliner and smoky eyeshadow. There is no room for originality in the world of makeup because anything less than what is shown on television screens is not conventional.
As an American, you are expected to be a platinum blonde with straight hair, blue-eyed, fair-skinned and relatively short or just below average height. You are expected to have at least a B cup, below one-hundred twenty pounds and some form of muscle.
You might say, "Well, I've seen a bunch of celebrities with different hairstyles and colour and they're still considered gorgeous. What gives?"
The access to hair dyes gives America the ability to change what is completely fine. As I do believe in using hair dye when your own hair colour begins to fade, it does make me hypocritical. But to change your hair colour when you have plenty of it on your head, does not make sense. To follow a trend to be beautiful in today's eyes? Tomorrow, you will be just a story because you couldn't keep up. A funny one, too.
America's fear towards the unknown does not help the cause to prevent stereotypical beauty, either. Racism stems from the unknown about someone different and it usually pokes fun at the outward face of the person. Racism, not only does it give America the ugly face, it tells the minority that you will never be as beautiful as an American because you do not fit the regulation.
Through that, the minority is stomped on and looked down upon because America has subjugated them into a lesser place.
We are told that we are all equal. We are told that we are all beautiful, but beauty is commercialized as the same type of person.
We are told we are beautiful but we are never the same as them. It's almost as if they expect a person to melt into a mold to become the standard for American beauty.
In reality, we are forced to dress all the same to feel apart of something, being beauty culture. Those who do not are frowned upon and their egos are smashed because they believe in something else. Feeling pretty in commercialized ware is not something I frown upon but it's the scorn that is given in tempered silence. The "originals" are frowned on by the standards.
America will never accept beauty for what it is. You are beautiful just the way you are (pardon the Bruno Mars reference) and you don't need to force yourself to conform to what society says to. People will eventually grow to love you for you are and I think that is one lesson America desperately needs to learn.
Commercialized success in beauty products with the same blondes and makeup styles can end. A sudden surge of originality and a face that says "Fuck what you think, this is what I think is beautiful!" can change a mantra.
You are beautiful, no matter who you are, where you come from or what your body type is.
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