Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Cultural Beauty Standards and Childhood


First of all, does every little girl want to be "like mommy" (defined here as wearing makeup and clothes), or do we just really want little girls to want to be "like mommy?" Sorta like we want them to spend their childhoods daydreaming about their wedding day and "being a mommy"... Second, note that being "baby-faced" enhances your shot at being a "superstar," and that being a superstar is something to aspire to. Third, what's the "magical age" for botox for children? How about never? Fourth, a quote from someone who's too young to have either wrinkles or boobs:
I check every night for wrinkles, when I see some I want more injections. They used to hurt, but now I don't cry that much. I also want a boob and nose job soon, so that I can be a star.
Finally, as the commenters in the video note, it's ridiculous that this girl (and her mother) think that boob jobs and botox will make you a star. But why wouldn't they think that?

Obviously the mom in this situation has some serious issues and she's placing a lot of crap on her daughter's very young shoulders. But just pointing at this mother with horror and disgust is a bit misleading and ultimately unhelpful. She's a product of our culture*, and if you've looked at celebrity culture lately, this is what makes a superstar, and it's never too early to start. It's reasonable for anyone who's uncritical and enamored of the celebrity dynamic and totally inundated by the messages that stream from popular media 24 hours a day to reach this conclusion. The more interesting questions are:
  • how do you help people become more critical in their consumption of popular media?
  • how do you go about making real changes in the steady stream of implicit messages about beauty and personal worth that are embedded in almost all of the media that we consume?

*A non-reflective, irresponsible product of our culture, of course, but still...


ETA: And I should say it's not just media and products that are aimed at adults either. This article highlights some really good examples of problematic marketing to children girls.

23 comments:

  1. Obviously these are good questions, but I think this is a particular case of the mother projecting all her issues onto the child. And no matter what the particular cultural or gender issues at play, that's always going to be hugely problematic.

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  2. "how do you help people become more critical in their consumption of popular media?"

    By doing this - by putting pieces of pop culture under the microscope and asking the kinds of questions you're asking and pointing out the assumptions we make about these things. I'm not sure how else.

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  3. Minerva3/30/2011

    I feel so sad for this girl.

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  4. Michael3/30/2011

    This is a case where I don't think you're giving people enough credit. I'll agree that we don't do enough to cultivate critical thinking skills in individuals, but you don't have to be a genius to see through this crap.

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  5. Hmm. I don't think you have to be a genius to see through it, but you do have to have some critical distance. And in our culture we're so inundated by this type of message about female beauty and what makes a woman valuable and what qualifies you to be an actress/singer/whatever that I doubt most people who have high media exposure can apply any real critical thinking skills. So I'm not sure it's an issue of intelligence. Temperament, maybe.

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  6. Michael3/30/2011

    Temperament? How so?

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  7. It seems like some people are more likely to be critical of our shared assumptions and cultural myths than others, and this is largely a matter of temperament. Obviously the way we're taught to interact with pop culture makes a huge difference, but some people naturally do this more than others. Which can actually be kind of maladaptive at times.

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  8. hippieMama3/30/2011

    How about just telling people to turn off their damn TV and read a book?

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  9. Michael3/30/2011

    Maladaptive how?

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  10. Are we playing the question game now? =)

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  11. Michael3/30/2011

    No, you're making intriguing comments and then not explaining them.

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  12. Fine. Maladaptive in that sometimes just accepting and going along with the cultural mythology can help you "fit in" and "get ahead." For one thing, you allow people to stay in their comfort zone. For another thing, conforming to convention generally helps you in your career and social life. Make sense.

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  13. Michael3/30/2011

    Yes. Interesting.

    So maybe the next step is to form some sort of test for the extent to which a person naturally accepts/questions the dominant worldview and mythology (similar to EQ tests, maybe) and then see how well these tendencies serve actual people, in a large sample size.

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  14. That sounds like something a soc person would do... ;-)

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  15. Michael3/30/2011

    Instead of just sitting around drinking coffee and speculating about it, like a phil person would do.

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  16. ouch! Now I need another cup of coffee.

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  17. Minerva3/30/2011

    At this point this thread basically reads like an IM conversation between Rachel and Michael. Interesting, though.

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  18. diamondsforhorses3/30/2011

    I love comment threads like this!

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  19. @hippieMama
    I agree this is a reason to limit media exposure. Maybe not turn it off completely, but limit it so you can get this critical distance Rachel is talking about.

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  20. Anonymous3/30/2011

    so, is there an age when botox is ok?

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  21. Gynormica3/30/2011

    I love how the video caption refers to botox injections as "extra help." Injecting bio-toxins under your skin to alter your appearance is now "help."

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  22. Anonymous,
    I don't know. Is there an age when botox is "necessary?"

    From my understanding of what botox does, it's a strange thing to do to a young person's skin, because it's meant to counteract the effects of aging. So doing botox on anyone who's really young seems strange to begin with. That said, I would think at the minimum they should be old enough to understand the treatment and choose it themselves. With things like boob jobs and nose jobs I would think their body should also be done growing, or you could get some odd complications.

    But these questions seem kind of irrelevant to me. I think what we should focus on is why girls, even girls who are so young and are therefore the cultural ideal, or don't even know yet what their bodies are really going to look like once they're done growing, feel such pressure to do extreme things to their bodies to conform to our strict and ridiculous beauty standards.

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  23. It would be extremely irresponsible for any surgeon to do a boob or nose job on a body that's not done growing yet. Ridiculous.

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