The Beauty Industry
Elle Macpherson is presently in town doing what she does best - self-promotion.
In this case it’s flogging her latest line in undies, for both men and
women. Not content with her status as one of the first super-models, she’s
also pushing her new status as a ‘super-mum’. Why is it that when
famous women like Elle and Madonna have children it’s considered some
kind of miracle? The amazing thing is how quickly they seem to get their
figures back and get on with their glamorous careers. I always wonder what
kind of effect all this must have on the ‘average’ woman who has
a hard time just looking after her children and keeping the cellulite at
bay. Inspiring? Disturbing? Deflating?
The ideals of beauty and body image that the media promotes, most particularly
in magazines and advertisements, are all too familiar to us. Young, stick-thin
models with perfect unblemished faces are presented as the preferred image
for women and girls to aspire to. It’s an image that’s often impossible
for impressionable girls and women to achieve, and is cited as a leading
cause of eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia in young people (the
Australian Medical Association found the number to be around 10 percent of
young people).
In fact, the Australian Medical Association recently called for a code of
conduct regulating the size and shape of models featured in advertising.
The code sounds like an interesting idea, but I doubt that it would ever
get passed. I mean, I can’t see all those stick-thin, over-paid models
being out of a job too soon - and certainly the agencies that employ them
wouldn’t wear it. It would be like insisting that advertisers’
claims for their products be realistic. Imagine that!
Actually it all comes down to the product. Young women and their bodies are
merely by-products of what’s really being promoted - ie, the clothes
and make-up they wear. Cosmetics and clothing companies cling to the simplistic
notion, the shallow ideal of surface beauty in women (and men) to help make
their products look good. Maybe their logic is that their products wouldn’t
look good on a smart, funny and ‘plain’ (by conventional standards)
woman, like say Janeane Garafalo. But then again, I think Janeane
Garafalo’s cute, so what do I know? Obviously it works, and a lot of
people buy into it.
Clueless or not, these cosmetics and clothing companies have real power when
it comes to deciding cultural notions of beauty. For example a woman I correspond
with was the former editor of a women’s magazine; she lost her job due
to a conflict of interest when she published a special issue on body image
that caused some cosmetics advertisers to threaten withdrawal of their
significant advertising dollars. She has since become an advocate to change
the image of women in the media.
I suppose I should leave the identity of the editor and the magazine anonymous.
But I don’t have any qualms in naming some of the cosmetics advertisers
that push their product in the magazine. They have names like Revlon,
L’oreal, Yardley, Chanel and Estee Lauder. They and others like them
ruthlessly maintain their vested interests in keeping women like Elle MacPherson
on magazine pages, thus perpetuating an impossible stereotype that impacts
negatively on the self esteem and health of many people, particularly young
girls.
Scumbags all.