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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Cultural Spotlight: Photoshop me beautiful

We live in a world where beauty sells. Movies, magazines and social media revere beautiful people and younger generations stress over having a “hot” face and body. We all have our own idea of what we consider beautiful, but does our perception of beauty differ from that of other countries? I recently came across an interesting article called “See What Happens When a Woman Asks Photoshoppers in Different Countries to 'Make Her Beautiful'” by Nate Jones that highlighted an important point: the idea of beauty differs from culture to culture. What may be considered beautiful in the United States might not be beautiful in Morocco or Indonesia. 

A journalist named Esther Honig wanted to see what beauty looked like in other cultures, so she sent an unedited picture of her upper body (face and shoulders) to artists and illustrators from all over the world. She told them to make her beautiful. The results were very fascinating. 

Cultural Spotlight:Morocco

An artist from Morocco photoshopped a bright colored Muslim hijab onto Honig’s picture and added eye makeup, whereas an artist in India made her extremely fair skinned with light colored eyes. The “beautiful woman” from the United States had a long, slender face and tan skin, while the same woman had a more angular face structure and dark hair in Argentina. 

Cultural Spotlight: Argentina

I found the photoshopped pictures of Honig very thought-provoking. While the teenagers and young adults in western cultures craze over appearance and constantly invest large sums of money on makeup and plastic surgery to look tan, slender and flawless, many people in countries like Nigeria view women who are overweight and have many scars as beautiful. Historically, women with bound feet were considered to be beautiful in China, and fair-skinned people were respected in countries like India and Bangladesh. 

So why do millions of people around the world obsess over having an attractive appearance? Why do social media sites use heavy filters to “fix” a person’s photo by making them look tanner and slimmer? This intense focus on physical beauty can be harmful to one’s mental health. 

In a world of increasing globalization and communication, pictures of “beautiful” women circulate the web, teaching children and young adults that beauty is more relevant than skill or personality. I believe this is an issue many people need to think about. Although the article I read highlighted the basic underlying idea of beauty differing from culture to culture, it made me realize how much certain cultures heavily value beauty. This study proves beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder. I strongly feel that it’s important to acknowledge that the perception of beauty isn’t universal, and “beautiful people” shouldn’t grab more attention in the news than other significant current events.

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