This assignment reminds me of a conversation I had with my father this weekend. He came up for Parents Weekend and walked into my dorm room while I was finishing putting on makeup. Knowing that I have much more liberal ideas opposed to his conservative, he only half-jokingly asked me why I was putting on something that only objectified women. I smiled and told him that I had a docile body that has been regulated by the norms of cultural life. Looking beyond if it’s right, wrong, or indifferent, wearing makeup is a body practice that is central to most female daily routines. It’s a widely accepted custom that has been engrained into our culture via magazine ads, billboards, or commercials featuring models with flawless skin, sky-high lashes, and eye shadow that seems to make the model’s eyes jump off the page. The process of putting on makeup is what Bordo would call ‘a pursuit without a terminus.’ You are never going to achieve that kind of makeup perfection, mostly because, as we learned from the Dove real beauty video, it doesn’t exist. Yet we still apply it every day because culture argues us and our docile bodies into thinking that we need to in order to look like a woman. Foucault said that docility is achieved through the actions of discipline. If discipline is a way of controlling the body, by wearing makeup we are trying to control the way people see our bodies. We want to prevent a shiny complexion, draw attention to our eyes, and just look glamorous all around. But to what extent are we expected to go to? We can stand in front of our mirrors every morning, but we will never reach the impossible ‘intelligible body’ and not just in the practice of makeup, but I would assume every other cultural body practice has this same problem. After explaining this all to my semi-impressed father, he shook his head and stated that it just didn't make sense, if your body can never achieve it, why people still do it? And then I asked him why he finds it necessary to shave and wear his three-piece suit to work everyday. Oh, the conundrums of Cultural Studies …
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Dropping some CSCL 1001 on my dad
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That is awesome you gave your dad a little cultural studies lecture in real life. Its always fun to apply your "new found knowledge" to your parents. I would have to agree completely with your Post how make up is a just a huge contradiction of women rights and objectification, but we just have to put it on. Our society created a norm body practice of makeup and I don't think it is a practice that will just fade with time.
ReplyDeleteThe title really interested me, and the read was just as good!
ReplyDeleteOne thing I find very interesting is how you brought up you put it on despite knowing you can't look that perfect. Not just the fact that it is Photoshopped but also that a make-up artist helped put it on them.
I think its interesting how your dad asked why do it then, and instead of thinking about it, you decided going with the flow was the best option. It seems that the docile body really is willing and ready to try to achieve that look even when the idea is shown to be flawed.