In Francois Bernier’s “A New Division of the Earth,” I found his perception of beauty very interesting. He managed to judge the beauty of various races by using a preconceived idea of what beauty is, but he fails to explain how he came to realize the definition of beauty. He explains all of the characteristics of the women, which make them beautiful or set them apart; however, he does not acknowledge his bias or the fact that beauty is a idea that is formulated and dependent on past experience and perspective. When he states, “I have also seen some very handsome ones among the blacks of Africa, who had not those thick lips and that squab nose,” Bernier is stating that these features are unattractive to him. He goes on to compare the most beautiful of these women to the Venus of the Farnese palace at Rome. This portrays his idea of beauty as having a certain set of desirable traits, “the aquiline nose, the little mouth, the coral lips, the ivory teeth, the large and ardent eyes, that softness of expression… etc.” It is clear that Bernier has been conditioned to view beauty in a certain way, and I think it would be interesting to hear an account of beauty from a different perspective or culture. Also, Bernier acknowledged that there are beautiful and ugly ones everywhere. I wonder if the people of the culture that he was judging had similar opinions to which women were beautiful verses ugly.
President Obama walks fine line on race, justice
11 years ago
Beauty is an interesting thing to consider while evaluating global perceptions of race and physical features. I first became aware of this issue while reading an opinion piece about Miss Universe many years ago. The writer discussed how an african woman had never won it and the large gap between the idea of thin as healthy and beautiful-- while big was beautiful in many African cultures because it represented health and wealth and illustrated ones ability to provide for themselves and in some cases their family. I began to think about how beauty is never universal and used various trips and life experiences to help further "investigate" what was beautiful.
ReplyDeleteWhile studying abroad, several girls on my program chose to do comparative analysis studies on what beauty was perceived as in each country (USA, India, South Africa, Argentina). Rarely did the countries models represent the general population --but they were adjusted for each place.
Two features that were particularly interesting across the globe were skin tone and hair style. Most ads chose lighter women to model-- regardless of whether the population has a predominantly white population. The products being heavily marketed in countries of darker populations were often times skin lightening cream. The models often reflected "the west" or the elite population. Additionally, despite the natural differences in textures of hair, it was fascinating to see how common straight hair was on everyone, and how "natural" it was for store displays to have blonde hair.
An african american girl in my program constantly discussed the straight hair phenomenon and found it to be quite frustrating. She argued that very rarely is straight hair a natural style for a black woman, yet if she fails to style her hair it is often times considered "nappy" and if she braids it then it is soo typical and "black." Why shouldn't her natural hair be considered beautiful?
The concept of beauty internationally is something I have taken great interest in. My personal experiences have caused me to strongly challenge my understanding of beauty-- but more often than not I recognize my ideas are manipulated by a certain popular culture.