As far as the beauty meme itself, I think it preys on how self-concious
The meme works we because humans "care" about what we look like, what
others think of us, our status, or power, etc...and if we didn't "care" so
much about everything and were not so self-concious, then beauty would be
unimportant. So I guess beauty is a type of 'self-evaluation'. But as
opposed to things like meditation and thought, following beauty routines is
about thoughtless repair on the outside, superfical aspects of ourselves,
even though the idea 'who you are on the inside is what's important' also
perpetuates itself.
I think not only are we fed/bred with this beauty meme through life, but we
also get the contradictory meme as well. This adds further confusion...
I agree with you Sodom about how much this meme is pushed by the
"industry". I'm always amused by the 'beauty-propaganda' I get all the
time, in the mail and otherwise. Since I fit a certain target age group, I
receive many cheesy catalogs by mail-order catalogs
with creative names like "girlfriends" with all the 'latest fashions' which
consists of fourth-generation teenybopper styles; tacky, shamelessly girly,
cheap clothes with a big price, of which none of the skinny, gorgeous
models prancing about would ever wear...ooh, I can just see the adolescent
girls in awe over how sexy they are going to look at school in a shiny new
baby tee and matching skirt, just like the model, spending their
babysitting money; but I digress.
What irks me is the hypocrisy of the business dealing it out. I get an
advertisement in the mail for a subscription to a glossy pre-fab magazine
named 'TeenGirl' or something as equally profound; on one hand the hype is
screaming "Just for ME!", "finally a publication made for girls like you!",
and "helping to boost self-esteem" and likewise, but also on the cover you
can see "What GUYS Want" (in every issue), "Get body/hair like the Spice
Girls!", and "Win a date with Leonardo DiCraprio!", and blah blah
blah....what is a girl to do? Modern pop culture is a whirlwind of blaring
commericals to the young impressionable teenage mind. While young women
are told repeatively that 'Girl Power' is in (more shockingly empty
sloganeering from the media) and this whole tidal wave of encouragement for
women as professionals, as artists, as musicians bombardes us and says that
it is "OK" to be female, and then some...well, that is certainly all well
and good and women's rights/condition in society is much better (but not a
lot) then mere decades ago, at the same time this destroyed by the same pop
cultures and contradictions that exist, that
mold/abuse/whatever-you-call-it women into a stereotype, and that
perpetuate this beauty meme. However, I don't think it is necessarily one
group or a single source that dictates or infects people with this meme. I
think the problem, as with everything else, is blind acceptance, obedience,
and support of this by females themselves.
Maybe it's just another instiution of culture, and there is some *need*
for it as a whole. I don't see one, but then again I don't think it is
beauty which makes a person fall in love; I think others would agree with
this. Your post made me recall a line from a poem, and I think it was
(Keats/Yeats/whatever, don't quote me on this) that went:
"Truth is beauty; beauty truth, and that is all one ever need to know."
Maybe this is true, if it is in the context as how beauty is referred to in
the poem; as something that is eternal (the author is contemplating a vase,
in which a picture of two youths about to kiss is frozen upon, as we are
always approaching truth but never acheiving it), but human beauty
certainly is not eternal at all, more like the novelty of a paper plate
which somes in handy for awhile, but doesn't last very long. Okay now
excuse me I have to go powder my nose...
~kjs