Trends, Culture, Models, and Figure.

On Monday I took part in a seminar where we discussed an article found on the BBC website. In this article the author goes over the growing trends that have started to spill out of America to terrorize the rest of the world. Products are now available to make you thin, make your hair "perfect", even to make you skin whiter. Girls across the world dream of the day they to can look like the model posing for Coach and Abercrombie.

We discussed several controversial matters including that of beauty when it comes to race. We went around the table and shared what we thought beauty meant to our dominant culture. It was interesting to hear how each culture differed. Some cultures prefer a full figured body, others embrace a certain body part, we even touched on how long a women would keep up the work to keep her body in shape. Several people said that they thought that when a women of their culture reached a certain age they were allowed to in a way, “let themselves go”.

Another hot topic was that of how the media encouraged the stereotypical image of beauty. We talked about how shows like “America’s Next Top Model” always say they believe in having “full-figured models” (in other words plus-sized) on the show, and swear that these girls have just as good of chance as the others of winning. But, have you ever seen one of these girls actually win? Have you ever even seen these girls make it half way? It’s things like this that show you what the media really wants to show as beautiful.

The one part of the article I appreciated was the part about Helen of Troy and Cleopatra. These two famous historical fugures are said to be the most beautiful women to have ever lived. But as the article said, “t is true that we have no idea of what it was about Helen of Troy's face that enabled it to "launch a thousand ships", nor do we know what one of the world's most beautiful queens, Cleopatra, actually looked like.” A concept that will truly make you rethink the meaning of “beautiful”.