Weekend Scrolls & Reads: The Beauty Edition

Still from "Girl You Don't Need Makeup." Photo: Popsugar

In addition to multiple tutorials on administering medication to pet rabbits, this week I read a review of Amy Schumer's new movie, I Feel Pretty. In "I Feel Pretty and the Rise of Beauty Standard Denialism," Amanda Hess writes:

"...part of the conditioning of the 'patriarchal ideal' is to make women feel empowered by it on their 'own terms.' That way, every time you critique an unspoken requirement of women, you're also forced to frown upon something women have chosen for themselves." 

TESTIFY. There's pressure wear to makeup and to eschew makeup, underpinned by the tacit expectation that women will not cross the fine line into selfishness as they expend resources to pursue an ideal. Because, as Hess notes, "in fact, our culture's ideal woman is beautiful and modest."

Towards the end of the article Hess suggests that "...striving for beauty is ultimately a rational choice in a world that values it so highly, and coverting that pressure into fun or communal experiences is its own form of resistance."

In this week's "The Face" column on Into the Gloss,  Isabella Rosellini, who recently returned to Lancome after 30 years, called out anti-aging messaging:

"When I came back to work with Lancome after 30 years, I wouldn't have come back just to say, 'I'm old, but I look younger than my age thanks to this cream.' That is wrong. Those kinds of statements were based in traditional old values which said that a woman's nature is to stay home, the biology of what a woman is determines your destiny."

Photo: Bowels of Pinterest

I realize that this is an "advertorial" to prop up the Lancome brand, but I'm nursing the hope that her statement could be a form resistance, too. (Although her biology played a huge role in her destiny as a model.) My hope is grounded in a sentimental attachment to Rossellini. Her initial appearance in the 1980s buoyed me as a teenager: to see an "ethnic-looking" (to use the parlance of the time) woman emerge from a sea of Christie Brinkley'd advertisements felt amazing.

Rossellini in the 1980s. Photo: Deep Pinterest

I also get that Lancome re-hired Rossellini and likely encouraged her "anti-anti-aging" statement because they're following the money that tucked into wallets behind AARP cards. I doubt that I'll purchase anything from Lancome, but I'll buy what Rossellini is selling.