Eye of the Beholder

There is definitely a common theme that links all of these authors together and I think that what stood out to me and what these pieces reminded me of is the old saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think that if you keep that in the back of your head while reading these pieces that old saying really makes a lot of since. The truth is that what is beautiful changes through time and space. What may be considered attractive in one culture could be considered freakish in the next, and what is considered beautiful in one point in time is ugly in another. One particular example that I can think of is that being fair skinned and slightly heavy was attractive because it meant that you had enough money to eat and that you were not out laboring in the fields, now the ideal is to be very low body fat and to have a dark tan even in the winter. The article Citizen Profane states “Today the socioeconomically advantaged are the only ones with enough free time from the ravages of labor and enough money to invest in personal trainers and pricey gym memberships to be able to cultivate the corps de jour. Maybe it is that we associate the ideal body type with the wealthy or famous. Often times we see movie stars who are either as skinny as a twig or look like they are sculpted from stone.
The other article that I found particularly interesting was black and brown bodies under the knife. I thought that this clearly demonstrated the idea of intersectionality. These women are changing their bodies to look more Caucasian. I liked the one part where the girls mom told her to be proud of her heritage when she herself was using lipstick to make her lips look not as big. I think that these women being African American feel that they are pressured by society and that they need to conform to look like the majority being whites. The article says that “ the paradox here is that the procedures that black and Latino women are choosing change their features in patterned ways that mimic white or Anglo faces.” This has been a very big topic of debate one that I actually had heard before this class, I think that it is an important issue and it is very interesting to study why these women may feel pressure to change their physical features to look “ more white”.