Back in the 50s women made themselves miserable trying to be the perfect housewives. They worked diligently in their small domestic sphere and were concerned when they didn’t feel satisfied with just hat. Women in the 50s wore little white gloves. From my perspective these little white gloves are a sign of docile and meek conformists. Just like the 50s I realize that I have been a docile and meek conformist. All this time, I have been trying to conform to one standard of beauty – the Chinese model which I don’t fit in and even if I did, would it make me happier? I think not.
I’m making a new statement: no more little white gloves. Trying to live up to the media’s impossible standards of beauty is ridiculous, spending money to modify my skin tone can become an expensive habit, trying to be pale can be just as deadly as cancer and companies are making too much money off of women’s insecurities. No more trying to conform to someone else’s standard of beauty. What matters most is that I am happy with myself naturally. Beauty comes in all shades and complexions.
…a continuation of Is She Hot?: The Quintessential Question
This video has changed my life. I knew that models on the cover of magazines had a large crew take care of their face, hair and eyes but it never occurred to me that all the images in a magazine underwent Adobe Photoshop. The model did appear more dull and pale than the face in the advertisement. Notice how color, depth and glow were added to her skin with makeup. Then it was enhanced with Adobe Photoshop. It’s true! I’ve been watching YouTube video after YouTube video marveling at all the amazing things that Adobe Photoshop can do.
This is a video about a girl from diet.com who is in very good shape but is still undergoes Adobe Photoshop. The video is campaigning against retouching photographs. It addresses the issue of an unrealistic standard of beauty that is set by magazines and advertisements but also shows the miracles of Adobe Photoshop. The photographer in the video has taken pictures of many beautiful women but always feels the need to touch them up on the program. It surprised me the most is that celebrities have personal touch up artists and their photographs are not publicly released without the touch ups. I’m really in awe of Adobe Photoshop. It does tanning for you. There are tutorials available online so that you can learn how to get the right tan on the program.
This is an instructional video on how to make you look more tan using Adobe Photoshop. In this video they took a picture of Rose McGowan who is naturally pale and gorgeous and they give her a bit of a tan using different layers, brushes and backgrounds.
No wonder women are so unhappy with the way that they naturally look. The images that surround us aren’t what people actually look like but instead highly manipulated images created by artists. The standard of beauty represented in these pictures is unobtainable and like he said in the video even if you were a professional athlete you could only get close to having the ideal body. Just hit a few buttons on the program and you can adjust your skin tone to any color you want. Is this the future of tanning?
I began this blog writing on my own self-image when I was a child and Karessa noted in her response that when she heard about my blog she thought I was insecure. This is partly true, so I want to discuss self-image in this blog post. I believe that making the choice of tanning or not tanning is an issue of self-image. It also has cultural implications. Although I knew darker when I lived in the Philippines I had no idea that I was too dark until I saw the television commercials of models with fair skin. Later in my life people would tell me things that altered by self-image. In high school I was a very impressionable young woman.
I remember the first day of school back in high school was the most exciting day of the year. We came back from summer with new stories and entered the new school year with new class schedules. The fun of the first day of school is seeing who you have classes with and catching up with everyone in the hallway. The most nerve-wrecking thing about the first day for me was trying to groom myself so that I would look my best.
The men in my school always played this game “Hot or Not”. The rules are simple. The men would survey all the women in the classroom and decide who was hot and who wasn’t. They would sit next to their best friend and point out who the winners were and their best friend would either agree or disagree. They acted like no one could see or hear them but I knew I could hear them perfectly. I never made it on to the hot list and I can’t begin to explain why this stupid game had an effect on my self-image but it did. I felt disappointed I was not considered to be attractive by these men. It’s not the only reason I had a low self-image but instead added to the list of reasons. It took me until today to learn why I didn’t feel comfortable with myself in high school. The thing is the girls that they thought were hot all looked the same and I didn’t fit into that mold.
Today, I stumbled upon this advertisement which sparked my curiosity. It’s called the “Evolution of Beauty” by the Dove Company. After watching the advertisement I logged on to their website and learned that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. "78% of girls with low self-esteem admit that it is hard to feel good in school when you do not feel good about how you look," (Dove.com). This really sums up my high school experience. I had low self esteem, felt insecure about how I looked and had a terrible high school experience. This also explains why girls feel the need to do massive amounts of tanning – they feel inadequate, insecure and unhappy with their natural skin tone. They would like to fit into the mold and aren’t secure enough with their self to venture outside the mold. I guess I can relate to that.
...to be continued. (Rachel and Mischa are ideals that we tried to live up to in high school)
[1] Segrave, Kerry
2005 Suntanning in 20th Century America: McFarland & Company.
