Paper #1: Questions 2 and 5

Ryan Rucker
Professor Yaisa Mann
WS 3413.001
October 2, 2009
Paper #1 – Question 2

“You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful, it’s true.” James Blunt seemed to have a good idea of what beauty is, but he doesn’t really ever tell us what is beautiful. The beauty debate has been going on for centuries. How can one word, six letters, cause such a stir among so many cultures? Beauty, to be beautiful, is a difficult thing to achieve and an even harder thing to maintain. The beauty standard is constantly changing, from hairstyles to clothing to physical appearance. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think that the people who define the standard should be allowed to have such a power over the rest of society. Just from an American perspective, I find it disgusting sometimes how beauty is pushed in everyone’s faces constantly through the multitude of advertisements seen on a daily basis. As we have discussed the definition of beauty in class and seen many images and videos about beauty, I have often wondered what it is like for other cultures. What is the beauty standard in the Eastern World or in South America, for example? How does it compare and/or differ to Western society? Is the beauty definition the same all over the world? I think that beauty means a lot of different things to different people and that even people living a world away from Norman, Oklahoma, have some difficulty defining what true beauty is and/or living up to it.
According to Naomi Wolf in the Beauty Myth, the common ideal that is thought of when people are asked about beauty is “someone tall, thin, white, and blond, [having] a face without pores, asymmetry, or flaws . . . “ (1). I think that this mindset is a disease that has been forced upon women for many years and it is sad that women feel that they have to live up to that standard and make whatever changes to themselves to become the standard. However, the caliber of beauty is constantly changing and people become obsessed with transforming their bodies to fit the mold. I think that this ideal is the same across many cultures just with different parts of the body.
Iran, for example, is the nose job capital of the world. While rhinoplasties are somewhat common in America, I don’t think that we could ever compete with that title. In class, we had a speaker from Iran, talk about her experience with her own rhinoplasty and how she decided to do it. There is pressure from peers and society both in Iran and from American society. The speaker said that when she first came to America, she thought that all of Americans had perfect noses and she wanted one. I think that since Iran is an Islamic country the advertisements for changing your appearance are definitely different from America, but I think that idea of the beauty standard is very similar. Also, since the women in the country are forced to cover themselves from head to toe, except for their faces, having a perfect face is a very important trait to possess. I don’t foresee Iranian women or men becoming obsessed with the other types of surgeries, but who knows what could develop in the coming years?
During my research, I came across this blog called “100 Ideals of Beauty” and it had a lot of interesting information about different beauty cultures across the world. One post that caught my eye was “The guitar-shaped body”. This section was about the beauty standard and influence in Brazil. The author of this blog discusses how, unlike the Middle Eastern beauty standard, the focus in Brazil is on “salon-waxed, well-proportioned beach bums in bikinis” (Ideals). Since there is not a heavily patriarchal and religious influence in Brazil, covering the body is the exact opposite of what is considered beautiful in this region of the world. There is such a heavy influence on the “bottom half” of the body because of the “’um corpo de violão’, literally the ‘guitar-shaped body’” (Ideals). This is the main point of attraction and often is shown by women getting breast reduction surgeries in order to make their lower halves look bigger than they actually are. Having those curves and body shape is something that while very common in the Western world, is not the beauty standard at all.
In the eastern part of the world, the emphasis on the ideal beauty moves back to the face but the focus is on a different feature. In Korea, the “ssang-ku-pul is the line above the eyelid, which most every Caucasian has but is rare among Northeast Asians” (Yoo). Julia Yoo, author of the essay “Beauty: The Korean Way” discovered that beauty in Korea means having “big eyes, a pale complexion, a sharp and pointed nose, a taller height, and a small chin and mouth.” Basically the ideal is to look as Caucasian as possible. Being born with the “double eye-lid crease” is said to make the eyes seem rounder and is much better than the natural eyes that the majority of Asians are born with. According to some of Yoo’s research, “South Korea has the highest ration of cosmetic surgeons to citizens worldwide.” The reason that this is so prevalent in this country is that the citizens are bombarded with advertisements on TV, billboards and in magazines of white people with these big eyes. They see models and pop icons and want to be just like them. Although starting out as a trend, cosmetic surgery in Korea is becoming a standard among both men and women.
The quest for beauty is a curse that plagues many cultures from one end of the world to the other. If it’s not the face, it’s the breasts; if not breasts, it’s the butt. Everywhere in world someone wants to look like someone else and become that much better. I was not really surprised at the beauty standard in Brazil, but the information I learned about in the Middle East and in Asia was new to me completely. But like Naomi Wolf says, “If women no longer think this way it is . . . proof of their ability to create lasting change and even a bit more freedom” (8). Women, and even men, just need to reach that point and realize that they don’t need someone else to define their own beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that is where it should stay.

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Ryan Rucker
Professor Yaisa Mann
WS 3413.001
October 2, 2009
Paper #1 – Question 5

It is often said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. While that is true, our eyes are definitely not used to look at someone’s soul. No, the eyes are used to judge physical appearance and critique beauty in both men and women. We are all guilty of examining someone else’s looks and thinking the worst about them. But how does this gaze manifest itself in the media. Since the majority of America are not filming the television shows and the movies, how do they know what people are looking for in an ad or a movie? And if we separate men and women, how would a director try to appeal to men versus appealing to women? This is how the “female gaze” and the “male gaze” come into play. I think Naomi Wolf says it best when she says that, “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only the relations of men to women, but the relation of women to themselves” (58). The male gaze is mainly about the female body and the body parts that are considered attractive. The female gaze is based on the influence of the male gaze and is often a harsh critic of other females. The media definitely plays this up in many different forms.
The male gaze, since it is so prevalent in our culture, is much easier to describe overall. This viewpoint can be seen all over the media from television, to film, to magazines, to music videos. This gaze focuses on “breasts, asses, and other jiggly bits even when the film [or other media source] isn’t necessarily supposed to be a T&A fest” (tvtropes). The most popular example would be the magazine, Playboy, the male magazine that has been around for decades. Hugh Hefner has made millions with his playmates and their provocative photos. According to some statistics, “one American man in ten reads Playboy, Penthouse, or Hustler each month” (Wolf, 79). This magazine is solely meant for men and features a centerfold in each issue who is basically spread out like a buffet display, for the benefit of a man. Pornography in print and film is a major industry all over Western civilization, especially in America, and there is definitely some of it portrayed on the small screen.
On television, there was Baywatch, the epitome of the male gaze for the entire run of the show. Even though I watched that show, it did not go unnoticed how slowly the female lifeguards run, or how tight their swimsuits were, or how abnormally large their boobs seemed to be. The acting on that show was pretty horrendous, but the reason it lasted as long as it did was because of the cast. There were some attractive males on the show and they too were exposed (e.g. walking around shirtless) but that is just one example compared to the three that I came up with for the women on the show. These two were very obvious examples, but the male gaze is all around us, in a way I have never noticed before.
While writing this paper, the song “Come On Over” by Christina Aguilera came on a playlist I was listening to, and thinking back to my childhood, I decided to watch the music video for it. Within the first few seconds of the song, I saw all sorts of examples of the male gaze. Directed by Paul Hunter, the video features the artist and her female “friends” all wearing tight pants and midriff revealing tops. The men in the video, are showing off their arms, but that is about it. The girls are constantly rubbing their bodies and shaking their hips and butts at the camera. At one point the females are lying on the ground and the males fall on top of them to insinuate the act of oral sex. Lastly the most prevalent thing featured all of the females behind a screen that only showed their shadow, somewhat like the Red District in Amsterdam. I couldn’t believe all of the things that I noticed now that I was looking at the video from a scholarly perspective. The male gaze is such a big influence on our society. It causes young boys to objectify women at an early age, and causes young girls to try and start changing themselves at an early age. The question becomes however, what exactly is the female gaze and does it even really matter?
The female gaze is so uncommonly heard of that it is often not considered influential or an important to gaze. Some people even believe that the female gaze is “a mere cross identification with masculinity” (Jacobsson, 18). Women, to an extent, are just switching roles with men and objectifying them as much as women are objectified. This makes women feel like they have the power, since they are the one that are judging in this instance, and not being judged. This is exemplified by the movie Fatal Attraction. At the beginning of the movie, the lead female is confident, independent, and in control of her relationship with a particular man (regardless of the fact that he is married). She is able to judge with the best of them and is what women should look up to, but the gaze of the movie is quickly switched back to the masculine point of view, because she quickly becomes portrayed as the crazy, neurotic woman who has no control over anything. The movie becomes a defender of masculinity, making it seem that even though a woman was in control, she could never handle it for too long, without going crazy.
Women also have pornography magazines and films directed at them, as seen through the female gaze. There is Playgirl magazine, which features a male centerfold in all of his glory. However, there is a new development created by Candida Royalle, who is a former pornstar herself, but decided to create Femme Productions, a pornography made specifically for women. She states that her films “depict sexual activity within the broader context of women’s emotional and social lives” (Bragge). These adult films are no longer focused on the male and his satisfaction, but on the woman and how she feels about herself before, during, and after intercourse. I think this is a very creative and necessary development especially for those who choose to watch these adult movies, to see it through another perspective.
Beyond the objectification of men and their bodies, I think that the real effect of the female gaze is placed upon other women. Women, in general, are harsh critics of themselves, but even harsh critics of other women. The female gaze upon other women is often seen as jealousy or spite because they can’t be like the woman that they see. Naomi Wolf says that, “‘ideal’ imagery has become so obsessively important to women because it was meant to become so” (59). Beauty is often a problem amongst women because we are the ones who the beauty standard is place upon the most. I can’t count the number of times I’ve said to myself, “Man, I wish I had her legs, or her waist.” It is a never-ending cycle of negativity put upon us and other women.
The male gaze and the female gaze are two completely opposite ends of a spectrum. While they do share some commonalities, the effects each gaze are different. The male gaze can affect a woman’s psyche to the core, but the female gaze is just something that is often trivialized as undesirable. Though there have been steps in the right direction to release women from this plague of both the female and the male gaze, they are still cursed by the influence of constantly being watched. The words “big brother is watching you” could never be more accurate than they are right now.





*I didn't put in the works cited for the articles because the blog wouldn't let me add the links without some sort of warning of broken tags*