The Plasticizing of Women’s Beauty
Why are we trying to look inhuman?
Yesterday, I saw a billboard for microdermabrasion. I assume that they chose the woman in the picture because she is beautiful. But the first thing I thought when I saw it was, “Why would they use a mannequin for a billboard?”
Her skin was so smooth that she looked like a plastic doll. There was no indication that she was human at all. On realizing that it must have been a live model, I felt like I had been living in the forest for 100 years and had returned to a strange land where some people were humans and others were robots with plastic faces. This might seem like an extreme thing to say… but it felt that surreal to see this billboard.
Why do we want to look like plastic dolls?
This is a very strange direction we have taken in the world. It’s one thing to put a bit of makeup on to accentuate the eyes or cheekbones. But something has gone crazy here. We are no longer supposed to have pores in our skin. We are not supposed to have laugh lines or any kind of line on our face.
We must have bodies that look like a Barbie doll. We must have “abs of steel”… What in the world is going on?
We are trying to look like machines and dolls. It is upsetting when we look like humans…
