Beauty is difficult: 

Discuss this claim with reference to the fashion industry’s representation of the body within fashion photography and advertising

Today the world perceives beauty as something that resembles dominance, wealth and power. ”Beauty is pain”, ”Soriano, M. (2017). Beauty is Pain: Photo Series Shows the Dramatic and Painful Lengths Women Go to for Beauty. [online] Rebelcircus.com. Available at: https://www.rebelcircus.com/blog/beauty-pain-dramatic-painful-le/%5B-women-go-beauty-2/ [Accessed 14 Jan. 2019].” is one of the most well known sayings regarding the difficulty of beauty, personally I believe this saying could be originated from the Victorian era when they used to wear corsets as they thought that having a smaller waist was perceived as beautiful and attractive even though it was difficult and painful to achieve.”given few role models in the world women seek them on the screen and the glossy pages”. Naomi Wolf, N. (1990). ”The Beaty myth. London, p.Page 42”. This relates to today’s life with the massive influence of the media on a large audience, people are pressured to achieve unrealistic body goals set by celebrities and icons all over the world – this heavily impacts the audience to attain impractical body images such as flawless skin, beautiful faces, hairless bodies, small waists, long legs and all around ’perfect’ body. Photographs and advertisements plastered In glossy magazines and hung on billboards have separate teams to specialise in lighting and have specific camera equipment, they also have crews for hair and makeup and they employ experienced and advanced photoshop editors to all work together to achieve the perfect photograph, whereas ordinary girls gaze upon these images and physically and mentally challenge themselves to try and achieve these bodies because this is what they ’beauty’ is. This ultimately creates self-hatred and impacts, women, to want to physically alter their bodies and can eliminate the feeling of their body acceptance. Women will starve themselves, go through intense workouts, take part in medical procedures just to alter their body to look like women in the media/magazines even though the women presented in the magazines have been edited on photoshop which results in women finding it difficult and draining to achieve completely unrealistic goals within their appearance/weight.

Victoria Secret’s models such as Kendall Jenner, Taylor Hill, and Elsa Hosk are all big influencers on women today, these are just a handful of models who set unachievable body goals to girls around the world, whilst we have explored the pressure and influence this puts on the audience and girls who read/view these advertisements and photographs there is also a large number of restrictions on the models everyday life to maintain this figure. The model would have to go on intense workouts, and have strict and difficult diet plans and a large amount of pressure regarding their body weight that could result in eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia and can also have a big impact on their mental state which could create problems such as body dysmorphia and depression – I can imagine its difficult to try and maintain such a beautiful image when you are an inspiration and icon to thousands of people all around the world. Naomi Wolf talks about women performing severe reforms to their body to at least look as similar to supermodels as they can.’’they need, consciously or not, to promote women’s hating their bodies enough to go profitably hungry, since so much of their advertising depends on their doing so by dieting” ”Wolf, N. (1990). ʻThe Beauty Myth’ and ‘Work’ from her The Beauty Myth. London: Chatto & Windu, p.64”. This quote referenced from The Beauty Myth also tells us that women go serious lengths to be proud of themselves and not to feel embarrassed. Furthermore, magazines include thin models and models really disliking their bodies so that ordinary women can pick up facts about diets, healthy eating, and exercising. 

I Would also like to cover the topic of the physical pain and cost women go through, to feel and look stunning. All genders go through the physical pain of cosmetic surgery and medical procedures from the lip and face injections to breast implants and women experience pain from trying to achieve hairless bodies from waxing, threading and laser treatments which shows the importance of feeling beautiful for you to prioritise beauty over the feeling of pain. Men and women are constantly spending money to look and feel beautiful, thousands of pounds get spent on makeup, dietary food, beauty cosmetics, hair products, plastic surgery, designer clothing, fake tan, and nail care, this means spending absurd amounts of money on your appearance.

This makes you wonder; can a poor person be beautiful? How would a poor person maintain their appearance? For example, homeless people are usually perceived as unattractive as they can’t afford haircuts and basic hygiene. This makes poor people find difficulty in being beautiful as they cannot afford basic essentials let alone beauty products. This all highlights the difficulty, effort, pain, and cost of being beautiful. After researching the pain of beauty and lots of different procedures surrounding beauty it made me question – is natural beauty difficult? If you are naturally beautiful should you have to spend money on procedures and products? Wolf talks about the truth of beauty editors and their advertisements. ”beauty editors are unable to tell the whole truth about their advertisers’ products” Wolf, N. (1990). ʻThe Beauty Myth’ and ‘Work’ from her The Beauty Myth. London: Chatto & Windu, p.62. This quotation tells us that beauty advertisers hide specific features or ingredients so that more customers purchase their products. Seeing this, made me realise that people buy beauty products with no idea what it is made of. The editors only write information that the customer wants to hear, and if they tend to receive some sort of allergies they won’t blame the product as there was no evidence of the allergy specification. Men and women simply get scammed by beauty cosmetic companies because all they want is to have a smoother face or look younger. 

On another note, Women in different countries who are usually exposed to poverty can experience great difficulty with being beautiful involving the harassment of men and can result in them be targeted as a sex object. Being good looking can make people expect things from you and you are constantly living to other people expectations and standards. People are judged on their appearance constantly when somebody meets you for the first time their first impressions are based entirely on looks, it is a common stereotype that pretty girls are unintelligent because good looking people are usually given the upper hand, they can come across as more powerful, respectable or popular. A study carried out by „Daniel Hamermesh” shows that beauty is highly associated with financial success, he did a large amount of research in several countries within different cultures. Meaning if you are beautiful, people will assume you are at more of an advantage to them and can sometimes find you a threat to their ego and can take a dislike to you because of feelings such as jealousy. He s ”plain people earn less than people of average looks”, ”Hamermesh, D. and Biddle, J. (1993). Beauty and the labour market. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, pp.1174-1194” which explicitly explains that ordinary people will earn less money because of their appearance and better-looking people will earn more money because if they look good then they can do their job good. In my opinion, people who need to look good are for instance models or new reporters however people who work days and days in an office shouldn’t really be judged on their appear cane because it’s their brain that does the work not their looks. Concluding, beauty can be difficult because a plain person can lose huge occupation opportunities because of his style or their outward form.

After generally speaking about the difficulty of beauty in a physical way and exploring how appearance and body image can result in problems I would like to talk about inner beauty and the concept of a beautiful personality. There are possible difficulties in trying to maintain a public image that people want to portray to others and how they chose the way others perceive them through their attitude and personality traits. This means holding back from bad personality essential quality that can sometimes be hard and difficult to control such as dishonesty, anger, jealousy, and selfishness. It would be considered difficult to always be able to cut out negative feelings and have inner beauty at all times. 

Lastly, aged people over ’60s feel that they deserve to feel beautiful too. Naomi Wolf also talks about how older people feel discomforted by the latest magazines as they don’t look as amazing as the front cover models do. She states: ”Worse 60-year old reader look in the mirror and think they look too old because they are comparing themselves to some retouched face…”, ”Wolf, N. (1990). ʻThe Beauty Myth’ and ‘Work’ from her The Beauty Myth. London: Chatto & Windu, p.63.” Which explores the idea that older people have feelings, they do not want to be forgotten and that they want more content to reach out to seniors about health and beauty advice.

Bibliography 

1. Wolf, Naomi. (1990). ʻThe Beauty Myth’ and ‘Work’ from her The Beauty Myth, London: Chatto & Windu 
2. ”Hamermesh, D. and Biddle, J. (1993). Beauty and the labour market. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, pp.1174-1194”
3. ”Soriano, M. (2017). Beauty is Pain: Photo Series Shows the Dramatic and Painful Lengths Women Go to for Beauty. [online] Rebelcircus.com. Available at: https://www.rebelcircus.com/blog/beauty-pain-dramatic-painful-lengths-women-go-beauty-2/ [Accessed 14 Jan. 2019].