Lessons on Geek Anthropology: Consuming Beauty

This week’s lessons on Geek Anthropology comes a little bit late and hot. It’s all about consuming beauty. Have you ever thought why we are so hard on Hollywood stars? Or why there are so many trolls commenting every single aspect of their bodies? Or why they do the same with people online? Or why we have double standards for men and women on beauty? One of the answers on why cultural stereotypes flourish and double standards are there to dox celebrities, and people who dare to share their pictures online is our thirst of consuming beauty. Consuming beauty is a daunting activity since there can’t never be satisfaction unless we start thinking about beauty on a broader sense devoid of stereotypes, if possible. Media creates unrealistic expectations on human beauty that are only fulfilled by a few who attain them thanks to strict diets, incredible amounts of hours in the gym and even some visits to the doctor. And so, with utter unhappiness comes the critics towards those who enjoy or dare to show a different beauty model onscreen or online.

Consuming beauty goes hand in hand with stereotypes. That is why Star Wars star Carrie Fisher was asked to lose 35 pounds to reprise her role in The Force Awakens. If you remember, it happened the same with her when he was first given the role, only that by that time she was asked to lose 15 pounds. While her male co-stars have been praised on how good they have aged, she has been hugely criticized for aging too much despite being the youngest. To this, we have to add the gender gap of 15 years between Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher. So, while male stars seem to be given the right to age, female stars don’t. In this sense, it does feel like Carrie Fisher has been allowed to appear in the movie because she lost some extra pounds.

Even if it looks like that only female celebrities are being criticized, the reality is that male celebrities are also under pressure. While the public agrees that telling Carrie Fisher to lose 35 pounds is plainly wrong, we don’t feel bad if the crowd is yelling an actor to gain 20 pounds. This double standard comes from our sense of consuming beauty reinforced by unattainable stereotypes.

Grant Gustin, the Flash, has been bashed because of not having a body build that fits the stereotype of Superheroes. Slender men who play superhero roles have it all against them when confronting a stereotype that goes against our sense of consuming beauty. Thus, body-shaming comes into place. Superheroes are built like Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, a God with a body that is not the norm. Countless hours in the gym, a strict diet and perhaps even some knife fixing are what makes Thor’s body one of the possible shapes (not the only one) to be a superhero.

While stars like Chris Patt, Star-Lord, have been open about their struggles with self-esteem and body image, the public seems to be hooked on consuming unattainable standards of beauty. When consuming a certain stereotype of beauty what we’re doing is getting increasingly unhappy and frustrated with our own bodies. Some people will react shaming celebrities; others will want that beauty and decide to have something changed. Thus, have we made of us creatures like Narcissus?

Narcissus looked at his own reflection all the time, and he became so absorbed in it than one day, staring back at it on a river, he fell in and drawn. It looks like we, as a culture, are drowning on our own narcissist way of consuming beauty, never being happy and absorbed with unrealistic reflections that have to be attained. Narcissus needed others to validate his self-esteem, their praise. We need others to validate our self-esteem as well. When the mirror gives you back an image you don’t like you are either unhappy, angry or both.

What does this mean? That the audience is active and passive. As an audience, we produce and consume beauty. Thus, we have the power to bash those who are under the public eye while we put ourselves in their same situation. Not only we are able to control celebrities, but we are also able to show ourselves to the world online giving the others the possibility of praising us or shaming us. However, we must be aware that we do so through screens, and this means that our consumption of beauty, and hence, the commodification of celebrities and stereotypation of bodies, comes through images. If an image does not conform our current stereotypes of beauty, we destroy it or change it to fit the stereotype. And this is what audiences do when the shame people online or go through plastic surgery themselves. [An ironic cultural allegory.]

Social media is an unforgiving world because what we’re judging is not actual human beings but their commodified mediated images! The mediated body is nothing more than something that could be, but it is not. The error of many members of the audience is to mistake an ideal on beauty with actual beauty. We, as Narcissus, are aware of our own bodies only through the images of others. Audiences idealize and model themselves on celebrities. But we must be aware that they’re humans, not simple objects to be consumed. Their images might be commodified; we might consume the idea hidden within certain stereotypes on beauty, but we are not consuming them.

We must reverse the mirror. Thus, accepting one’s image is key to accept the image of others. Some Cosplayers have understood this notion and are creating their own molds when cosplaying their favorite Superhero characters. Showing up that human beings do enjoy the diversity of having many different body shapes, they go out into the digital wild and stand against shaming, crashing stereotypes, just like some celebrities do.

It’s time to re-think ourselves. Validating ourselves from the outside-in is an error. Like Narcissus, we’ll be forever slaves of other people’s opinions. In doing so, we’re giving them the power to make us feel good or bad. Validating ourselves from the inside-out is key to smash outdated stereotypes and regain control of our own bodies. We are the ones to decide how to feel, not others. We won’t be able to accept old female celebrities or slender Superheroes if we are unable to accept ourselves and celebrate diversity.

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Sources:

1. How the Star Wars Trio has aged gracefully – and the undue scrutiny on Carrie Fisher.
2. Grant Gustin reminds us that male celeb body-shaming sucks, too.
3. Cosplayer Geisha Vi believes loving yourself is the key to dressing up as someone else.
4. Ellis Cashmore, Celebrity Culture.

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Copyright: Images on this post (C) depepi.com / Memes (C) by their owners.