Notions of desire relating to the aesthetic of the physical body pervade our world and media space in every direction. Intrinsic desire to conform to social conventions create standards we feel the need to adhere to. Emphasis on the importance of physical appearance, trends and fashion backed up by global industries and media channels create a desire within us. This desire conforms to certain, modern beauty ideals that become an expectation in public life, especially for women. As stated by Sheila Jeffreys:
“Women have increasingly made their mark in traditionally male domains… but they were required to show deference to men in their appearance, with high heels, makeup and restricting clothing, inappropriate to the seriousness of their office. Women entering the public world… are required to self-objectify and enact harmful beauty practices on their bodies if they are to avoid rebuke.”
Consumerist culture and advertising of new beauty products point us toward what we lack, such as perfect grooming or hairless bodies, creating false perceptions of what we need through Western constructs of what beauty is. If not bought into already, pressure to conform and desire to belong within certain public sectors of society build a strong market for beauty products.
Trends and expectations in the Western world push particular angles toward consumers, including the need for luscious, long hair. While long hair itself is attributed to health, due to its deterioration or lack of growth with issues such as malnourishment or ageing, most advertising defines female beauty upon their silky long locks.
As a species dependant on group relationships and holding instinctive need to belong, desire to fit into cultural contexts becomes an important facet of our connection with others. Physical beauty also ties in the desire to appear desirable to others, being the first factor we are judged upon when meeting new people.
In exploring the strict physical maintenance required to uphold hegemonic femininity, I decided to investigate subversion of performing these processes. Artists such as Bart Hess and Ronit Baranga examine the balance between the beautiful and the grotesque. Baranga’s exploration of the boundaries between repulsion and desire as well as the living and the still led to further notions of subversion of typically advocated desires within the beauty industry.
Fickle treatment of hair on women can be seen on any billboard of television commercial, idealising thick heads of hair, plucked eyebrows, long eyelashes and bare legs. By satirically exploring these societally accepted notions, I attempt to draw attention to inconsistent and extensive means women are expected to reach and desire, in order to appear desirable. Without brands bombarding media screens with advertisements for razors and endless hair-maintenance products, would we idealise and desire shaven bodies and heavily-groomed faces?
As long, blonde, straight hair is constantly sported by those frequenting the media, I have chosen to use this in other areas of the body to highlight the rigid social norms adhered to within images of desirable beauty. Need for maintenance and grooming is emphasised through use of the mascara/eyebrow brush in the photographs taken. Absurd amount of hair growth pictured on the hands, eyebrows and eyelashes exposes the strange collective yearning we harbour to adhere to specific grooming trends. Luscious hair used as well as the activity of self-grooming captures the desirable images endorsed by the industry. Overall, the balance between beauty and the uncanny serves to show how our desires concern for outward appearance is excessively shaped by mass media and societal norms telling us what we should desire over personal wants and whims.
These photographs were carried out by attaching hair together through several tested methods, resulting in combined use of lash glue and double sided sticky tape. The photos were not taken upright, in order to give the hair gravity-defying lift. These were then cropped and edited in photoshop to create the final five works, with black borders to further enhance the vacancy and lack of substance in desire created purely by beauty brands.
Andi Schreiber (July 16, 2014) http://beautifuldecay.com/2014/07/16/andi-schreiber-documents-middle-age-need-desired/
Bart Hess (2012) http://statusmagonline.com/features/bart-hess-interview-september-2014/
Black P & Sharma U 2001 ‘Men are real, Women are `made up'1: beautytherapy and the construction of femininity’ The Sociological Review, vol. 49, no. 1
Jeffreys S 2015 ‘Beauty and misogyny: Harmful cultural practices in the west’ 2nd edn, Routledge, New York
Ronnie Banranga (2015) http://www.ronitbaranga.com/blog.html#blogBlurred
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