Make-up, Porn Stars and Beauty Pageant Queens
It’s not often that I find myself looking at either porn stars or teen pageant queens on my computer, but today was an exception. Oh Huffington Post, how you lead me astray. First, let’s talk about make-up artist Melissa Murphy, who photographed the faces of numerous female porn actresses before and after make-up. The transformation is shocking. www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/03/porn-stars-without-make-up…
The women, many of whom look shockingly young when bare faced, are completely, unrecognizably transformed. Each photo I clicked through was hard to believe – facial features look completely different, complexion, age, even ethnicity appeared different. Does the girl in the above photos look like the same person?? It just blows my mind that the pretty, young, and very normal looking girl on the left is, well, blowing other things on film – which is sort of a problem in of itself. If men (and women) who watch porn are conditioned to equating “sexy” with the fully made-up face on the right, it creates the same problem that women have with fashion magazines – impossible ideals presented as reality. And it gives the idea that “plain” girls can’t be sexy. While many articles and magazines have shown celebs without photoshop or makeup, they are still made to look gorgeous by other means – clever photography, lighting, etc. Here though, the simple “before” photos use no tricks, and you can see not only perfect imperfections, but even hints of actual personality! Once the mask comes on, the porn actresses become a lot less relatable and a lot less interesting, imho (though I don’t think most porn viewers, while watching, really care about the actresses’ quirks and if they get along with their families or dream of stomping grapes in Italy). I think this article struck me so much because it’s proof that most women do not look like porn stars, or super models, or celebrities – even porn stars, super models, and celebrities don’t look like porn stars, super models, and celebrities in their natural condition.
So what is learned from this illuminating slideshow? Anyone, even the most acne-ridden, baggy-eyed, asymmetrically featured old crone, or young girl, can look like the prototypical porn star, super model, or celebrity, if they have an amazing make-up artist at their side. Does that democratize beauty? Anyone can overcome their genetic imperfections and be “beautiful” if they wear make-up? Is it empowering to show girls and women that all they need to do is learn to do their make-up REALLY well and they can be the envy of our gender? I do actually see the empowerment in this – make-up gives confidence. You aren’t stuck with things you don’t like about your appearance. You can cover or disguise or enhance them to feel more comfortable in your skin, and be more confident in showing your true self. Fine. But conversely, do we need to change our standards of beauty so that not everyone has to go through that waste of effort, time, money, and most importantly, insecurity every single day to get closer to an impossible ideal of what we “should” look like to be beautiful? Wouldn’t we all feel a lot less ugly if we saw people who looked normal being considered desirable? I’m not sure if I feel better or worse about the fact that the unattainable images of beautiful women we are bombarded with are not really what those women look like. I want to see what those women really do look like! But then does that kill the idea of Fantasy entangled in the whole fashion, beauty, and media industry? Is that a good thing?
As if this weren’t all enough, a few more Huffington Post link clicks led me to an article about Korean beauty pageants, which was really dumb, but interesting in that they mentioned how 1 in 5 girls in South Korea admit to having had plastic surgery. That hurts my heart on a deep level. But from that article, I clicked a link to see how they compare to American beauty pageant contestants….who look shockingly too much like the porn stars’ “after” photos. In addition to the same overload of transformative make-up, the women are definately over-sexualized. They are competing on beauty, not booty!!! Oy vey. It’s not that beauty pageants haven’t always been misogynistic in their special way, and that the swimsuit competition has always been a highlight, but these photos just take tacky to a new level. No wonder there is such an influx of pageant girl sex tapes in the headlines all the time, seriously. http://www.missuniverse.com/missusa/members/contestants
I’m just not sure what to think or do about all this beauty stuff and the images we are presented with. Next post will be a cheery one, I promise.
And now I’m off my soap box – thanks for staying tuned!
