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Week 2: Beauty

We all know, that standarts of beauty are very high these days. You have to be symmetric, thin, long haired preferably, beautiful. Oh, and it would be perfect, if you also had very long legs, wore high heals all the time, were sexy and smart at the same time. You should also work and take care of your house. Well, it’s a fantastic and delusional mission. You will never look as good as those models or actresses. Why? The Answer is simple, the photoshop! We all use it every day, and we do know, how it works, and we do know that pictures are altered, and still we’re trying to get to this “perfection”.

Another thing is, that there are some celebrities who are normal. There are many of them who say "I don't care about the Hollywood beauty model" yet still they demand to be photoshopped, or they put lots of make-up on. They do plastic-surgeries (like Jennifer Aniston, who was an icon for natural beauty, before she put botox to her face...)
Anyway, there are some quotes, quite interesting, from celebrities who really don't care, or try not to fall into Hollywood standards:

Some time ago a big American company decided to limit all the sizes. The biggest size available to buy was 10 (38 in EU). That, of course, made the media and people disappointed and surprised. How could a clothing company decide to do something like that?
My favorite host commented on it in a perfect way:

And for last, but not least, I want to mention Lizze Velasquez, once called “the ugliest woman in the world”. Maybe she’s not easy on the eye, but what she says is so important for every single girl and guy, who doesn’t have enough of confidence in her/him:

Comments

I think, that human kind since 10 – 15 years are expecting too much from themself. Today everyone insistently leads to perfection, sometimes get some of inspiration from movies or video games characters and usually we forget that this kind of effects are possible only by using special programs (like Photoshop). Of course, we can get inspired from actors or characters which they playing, but reasonably. We can dress up similar, make this same haircut etc. but without sacrifice of our body in plastic surgery. And what about countless surgery of some of actors, I suppose, they simply have less opinion about themselves, because for what reason is improving a body if it’s quite perfect?
Unfortunately, there is still a many of people which are assesses people by them appearance, and on the second time they thinking about what other person have “inside”. I think, the common man could much to learn from persons like Lizze Velasquez. For example, listening her speech we may deduce that the look is no important but human soul, character and behavior.
Shortly, simply we shouldn’t get crazy and do not follow so quickly to fashion and newest trends in appearance.
Tomek said…
I think that appearance is just another thing that some jobs require, most do not. Hollywood is a great example of a place where it is highly valued. If the worlds stopped being interested in skinny models and handsome men, Hollywood would stop being interested in them as well. I don't believe there is another reason other than money that drives this trend. Also, there are just a couple of places as popular as Hollywood. Not many jobs are available but the number of people trying to get them is huge. So naturally they aim for perfection because they simply can.
Unknown said…
If we look back in times beautiful woman was rubenesque, curved, than slim, anorectic, blonde, brunette, tall, short- it changes what means that there is no universal ideal of feminine beauty. Even theese days men i think don't have just one type of perfect woman. Some of them will love Marilyn Monroe's blonde, sexy, curved look, some of them will love Agyness Deyn's tall, slim silhouette, with short hair, and the others would love Dita Von Teese.It depends on our taste and the current "perfect woman" means nothing in here.
Kasia Kmieć said…
When discussing beauty we should all be aware that our way of understanding it differs remarkably from beauty standards in other part of the world. Look through these slides to check http://www.cosmopolitan.com/hairstyles-beauty/weird-beauty#slide-1. We are strongly dependent on western, most popular and widespread standard of beauty, which is somehow unfairly found as completely evil - it has some strong as well as weak sides. I don't think it is that bad to aim at perfect, healthy body (which btw should not be identified with anorexic models). But of course it can't be the most important part of life. Everyone should find the golden mean and focus on both body and mind perfection.
Unknown said…
I think that the standards of beauty that are set right now by the media are a very superficial thing - some, especially less educated people watch TV and expect of others to look like that, and try to look like that by themselves. Then they judge people by those standards. It's pretty bad.
The truth is, that most guys don't really like girls that look like fashion models. Personally I think most of them look really wrong and not attractive at all. There are guys who go all metrosexual, but fortunately they are not in high demand because for guys, fortunately, looks is still not such a huge deal. I am a guy, I like it when a girl is clean and takes basic care about herself, but as soon as extremely strict diets and hours of make-up putting come into play, this becomes more of a negative trait.
I had the opportunity to work as a photographer's assistant in the commercial photo studio. I saw the whole process of creating perfect pictures for the cover of a magazine. I can't say that models were ugly and later made to look like the queens of beauty. They work with body, so they have to spend time at the gym and take care of their appearance. But to be honest - models are only 50% of success. The rest of ideal photo was created by makeup artist, clothes and light. At the end of process
photo enters computer and graphics software ( capture one or photoshop), where is refined. Celebrities are not always models and I think that sometimes the graphic designer need more time to improve their images How about plastic-surgeries ? I am an proponent of natural beauty, but everything is for the people. If someone get tired with own body, estetic medicine can help to be happier. Personally I like nice, perfect, good quality things. And I think it's normal. Why would I prefer unsightly
cars than beautiful ones? Pursuit of perfection can be very motivating and good for people, but not at any price.
Unknown said…
This is very interesting topic... The question is... What is actual beauty and what does beauty means? Question which is very difficult to answer. We might say that beauty is a pattern, set of rules shapes and colors which represents our likings. Those likings might be very individual. What is beautiful to me might be not beautiful to you.
Beauty is a market for clothes designers and cosmetic companies. They often try to tell us how they understand the beauty. They shape our subconscious, telling us what the beauty should look like. They do this in many different ways using TV, billboards, fashion shows and so on...

In baroque the beauty was totally different. http://bjws.blogspot.com/2013/02/1600s-women-by-flemish-peter-paul.html. Round shapes instead of skinny models on high heels.


Kacper K said…
All the information and opinions about beauty included in the articles and links allow me to summarize them into one statement: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it is only skin deep. We should differ beauty of someone’s appearance from beauty of someone’s soul. The second one is the truest in a life. And I think not too many people have got a wonderful beauty of soul. Only one link impressed me deeply – the last one. Lizzie Velasquez – a person with very optimistic voice and a special distance towards herself and her life, people and problems. And the fact that she has a really wonderful soul and personality was shown on women’s faces who listed to her with great attention and understanding.
Darkia said…
It's hard to decide what is beauty. Of course in our times there a lot ways to look better. There are many beauty saloon, where they can me u feel really good, and help with imprefection :)
Of course in most of magazine we will get only the photoshoped photo. Many photos of private people in all kind of social portals are also manipulated. I know people who didn;t allow to show they photo before using on it photoshop. It;s stupid, because they only can repair thei ego or something, but still, in real life they can't use everyday photoshop. Eg. if some men was interested in woman met from social page, she have realy beauty photo, and in real, she was just... normal.
Anonymous said…
I am very glad that fashion is slowly changing :). Very thin women cease to be a symbol of beauty. Sport and healthy lifestyle is a true example of beauty.
It is easy to see the difference between this:
http://60wecandoit.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/chude-modelki-16371435.jpg
and that: http://p2.fejsik.pl/p2.fejsik.pl/d1b47ce8bdcaf5c2f51df722020f8a63.jpg.
It's simple, if you want to be beautiful then you need to work on this. It is not enough to eat once a week: D
Unknown said…
Nowadays beauty has become something more than just good appearance. For some people it is goal of whole life. Pursuing standards set by media often leads to different results than planned but still appearance is really valuable for some and judging someone by it become so popular and that brought us to question what is beauty now?
The latest episode of South Park actually concerns this exact subject, that is that most models photos are photoshoped. Anyhow I think that there are many „kinds” of beauty and to really look good you just need to define or find a style that suits both your physique and personality. Therefore I am against the idea of a „global definition” of beauty: I think that it's wrong to impose one particular image that everyone should follow. Nevertheless, as others pointed out in their posts, in certain jobs looking a particular way seems to have become a requirement, like a skill would be required in other jobs. In my opinion the best thing to do, is to believe in your ideals of beauty, whether they are close to the popular ones, or not.
Unknown said…
I think that a beautiful woman is one who takes care of themselves in a healthy and sensible way. I can’t imagine that my woman looked like an anorexic and spent three hours in the morning in the bathroom before going to work and three hours in the evening before going to dinner.
A healthy lifestyle is trendy now.
In my opinion media promotes this style, but this is changing very slowly. I don't believe there is another reason other than money that propel this trend. I personally prefer a natural woman.

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