Beauty When it is Beast

One strategy for marketing is to create a compelling story that resonates with people; to create a myth to sell the product. This strategy is commonly used in the beauty industry to create a myth of an impossible and unachievable ideal of beauty. Most often it targets women and drives them to strive for achieving this ideal by buying their products.

While beauty standards have varied between time periods and across cultures and societies, the Eurocentric features are widely accepted as the ideal for beauty in today’s world. The roots of this idea can be traced back to the 1950s when celebrity endorsement of products was popularized, and white Hollywood celebrities advertised products across the world instead of local celebrities. This instilled the idea that beauty meant being fair-skinned, straight haired, tall, and thin-waisted. This ideal of beauty was and still is widely accepted and people fulfilling these criteria of attractiveness are often rewarded by the world.

The globalization of beauty is an awful blend of capitalism, imperialism, sexism, and racism. The impacts of this over-idealized beauty in media are overwhelmingly negative and include lowered self-esteem, increased depression, use of harmful skin lightening products, excessive dieting, and eating disorders. The advertisements create a void in women which can only be fulfilled by buying the products and getting closer to the ideal. Since the ideal is unachievable, the void never ceases to exist, and a constant demand of the product remains which, therefore, results in an uninterrupted flow of profits for businesses.

While the recent trends towards rejection of women being portrayed in stereotypical roles focused on pleasing men and the movements of body positivity and body neutrality are a welcome change in the West, much remains unchanged in the rest. Major changes often come when there is a sufficient social pressure. Also, the onus to bring about a positive change can also be put on brands across the world which need to shift their focus towards more inclusive advertisement campaigns that focus on celebrating the wonderful uniqueness of people instead of leading them to chase an unattainable ideal of beauty.