The first aspect of beauty standards that is important to look at involves the causes of them. It’s important to analyze the causes and the appearance of beauty standard in the media, such as in TV/Film, advertising, or even product sales. Most beauty standards can be spotted within the media. Beauty standards are expressed within the generalized faces that people see in the media- such as in TV/film, advertising, and product sales. Many of the heroines in films are typically fair skinned, thin built, straight haired women. For instance, a study done by the Woman and Hollywood website expressed that, “76% of all female characters were White, 13% were Black, 4% were Latina, 3% were Asian, 2% were other worldly, and 2% were other.” The most sought after characters tend to be the same general, fair skinned, long legged, perky looking women, while the the racially diverse ones are set as the background, sidekick type of character and the heavy set, freckled-face, or even glasses wearing women are seen as the version of “beneath” others, or in many instances, the appearance of a comedic relief. The face of a movie poster is rarely a diverse looking character, unless the purpose of the movie was centered around focusing on the diversity of their appearance. In fact, a majority of Disney princesses fit within this general standard.
Another example can be seen in advertisement. The most obvious advertisement brand to express beauty standards would be the Victoria’s secret brand. Victoria’s secret is known for their “sex sells” beauty ideals and bases their advertisement and modeling on this concept. Looking at the statistics, and seeing how Victoria’s Secret angels are seen as the most “beautiful” women in America, while a majority of Victoria’s Secret angels are caucasian and wear a size less than four, stigmas about what the ideal woman should look like are heavily expressed. A study was done of popular advertisements and the faces on the front of them within the article written by Erica Tempest for the website Dailymail in which they saw the same issues arising with generalized looking faces. The article states the results of this study:
“Graphic design company Canva has analyzed over 480 models across the food, fashion,
beauty, and technology industries and averaged them together to create the
perceived perfect face for each brand. And while America's standard of beauty if
continuously changing, almost all of the brands are choosing models who look
alike with hardly any variation in skin color or facial features, proving that the
advertising industry is behind when it comes to embracing diversity.”(Tempest 1).
The people in the advertisements provide a very generalized idea of what “sexy” should look like and show how beauty standards are caused in this society.
A last example of how people can spot examples of beauty standards in the media can be seen in product sales that express a generalized example of beauty. The most obvious product that is sold that expresses unrealistic ideals for women would be the Barbie products by Mattel. Most Barbie dolls sold are not Barbie dolls that aren’t blonde, very thin, with long legs, necks, arms, perfect proportions, big eyes, and loads of makeup. Also, clothing products generally come with biases towards the same crowds. Most “nude” colors of products are not made for nudes of all colors, and a lot of the most trendy styles of clothes are made for specific crowds of people, while the diverse body types are not given as much variety. All of these general ideas of beauty and sale in the media are what causes people to have these false ideas of what beautiful means. Praising generality is going to result in diversity being thought of as less than.
Another example can be seen in advertisement. The most obvious advertisement brand to express beauty standards would be the Victoria’s secret brand. Victoria’s secret is known for their “sex sells” beauty ideals and bases their advertisement and modeling on this concept. Looking at the statistics, and seeing how Victoria’s Secret angels are seen as the most “beautiful” women in America, while a majority of Victoria’s Secret angels are caucasian and wear a size less than four, stigmas about what the ideal woman should look like are heavily expressed. A study was done of popular advertisements and the faces on the front of them within the article written by Erica Tempest for the website Dailymail in which they saw the same issues arising with generalized looking faces. The article states the results of this study:
“Graphic design company Canva has analyzed over 480 models across the food, fashion,
beauty, and technology industries and averaged them together to create the
perceived perfect face for each brand. And while America's standard of beauty if
continuously changing, almost all of the brands are choosing models who look
alike with hardly any variation in skin color or facial features, proving that the
advertising industry is behind when it comes to embracing diversity.”(Tempest 1).
The people in the advertisements provide a very generalized idea of what “sexy” should look like and show how beauty standards are caused in this society.
A last example of how people can spot examples of beauty standards in the media can be seen in product sales that express a generalized example of beauty. The most obvious product that is sold that expresses unrealistic ideals for women would be the Barbie products by Mattel. Most Barbie dolls sold are not Barbie dolls that aren’t blonde, very thin, with long legs, necks, arms, perfect proportions, big eyes, and loads of makeup. Also, clothing products generally come with biases towards the same crowds. Most “nude” colors of products are not made for nudes of all colors, and a lot of the most trendy styles of clothes are made for specific crowds of people, while the diverse body types are not given as much variety. All of these general ideas of beauty and sale in the media are what causes people to have these false ideas of what beautiful means. Praising generality is going to result in diversity being thought of as less than.