Last week I mused about makeup, and some of the reactions to that post made me think a bit more about beauty and what makes someone attractive to someone, and in what context.
For example, in thinking about Jay-Z and Beyoncé, and how...different...they look, I remarked on male privilege via money and power in heterosexual couples, to which my partner replied, "Actually, Jay-Z has different experiences that make him an interesting person."
That makes sense. And for someone who has her own life experiences and passions, who can be more attractive than another who is driven and works to make the most of his talents? Isn't that something powerful, something that makes a person attractive to someone else?
Clearly I don't need to wear makeup to look like a "white person". Nor do I need to wear makeup to look like an "attractive Asian (or Japanese) person". But I'm still curious about untangling those threads that link up changing the way we look to feeling happy, to being and feeling more "attractive".
I'm not talking about Japanese makeup and haircare practices from centuries ago. I'm not going to shave my eyebrows or put white powder on my face. I'm not talking about skin whitening creams that became popular after the turn of the century, with the modernization/Westernization/militarization of Japan. And I couldn't really speak to practices in uses of cosmetics in other countries, because I just don't know.
But when I say "look like a white person", I'm not talking about—and other people aren't talking about—people who don't fit the bill of the assumed attractiveness that is de rigueur. We're not talking about people who are short. We're not talking about people who are overweight. We're not talking about people without long, shiny hair (or people who are balding). We're not talking about people whose nails are short and dirty from working with their hands. We're not talking about people with rough skin or sock tans.
We may be talking about people who aren't white, but who are tall and thin and sufficiently-breasted (or whatever). We may be talking about people who are transgender or transsex who are then commodified because they manage to flabbergast the audience by looking so much like a beautiful version of [insert preferred binary category here]. But we certainly aren't talking about "real women" that a company like Dove would use in its commercials. We're not interested in real real women, because that's just too much; we're interested in fake, Photoshopped real women. Does that difference make sense?
When I hear "beauty" and "whiteness" I assume we aren't just talking about race or the shade of our foundation. I assume we're talking about power and (cultural) capital. I assume we're talking about the complexities that come from being hapa and therefore you have your dad's curly hair and your mom's flat nose. I assume we're talking about the trend among men in some societies who get talked about for their metrosexuality or for wearing makeup to get job offers. That's what we're talking about, no?
I do sometimes annoy myself for overthinking things...but then again, I'm not sure where "thinking" becomes "intellectualizing" becomes "overintellectualizing". I'm not fool enough to think that I'm the only one who thinks this way; I'm also not fool enough to think that everyone else thinks this way, too. But I feel too uncomfortable just siting here doing whatever my instinctual preferences tell me to do—after all, where did my instincts and preferences come from? I sure as hell wasn't born with them.
No comments:
Post a Comment