English

Assignment

By:

Maryam Noor

Date: 18/02/2009

Q. Write a critique of the beauty industry with special reference to concept of beauty in the

past and present. Correlate your answer with Pakistani society by citing examples from

every day life? TWO OUTLOOKS OF ONE WORLD

Sitting besides the dressing table, a girl is working on her make over. Eyebrows plucked,

manicure, pedicure and facial done though she ruined her natural beauty. Wearing expensive,

short outfit and laud jewellery makes her think she is different from all other girls.

A bulky woman, sitting all depressed, waiting for her husband to come home from his

office. There‟s an ad on TV of liposuction, filled with hopes again she makes up her mind to get

herself trimmed.

BEAUTY INDUSTRY:

Pakistani Beauty Industry is no different from a Beauty business in any other corner of the

world. We see the same things happening in Pakistan as they are in U.S. or U.K. The situations

that we have seen above are very common. In our society we will easily find girls with „perfect

body‟ and „perfect skin‟ that every woman desires as well as middle aged women hoping to solve

their life problems with liposuction: the girls who actually possess the „perfect body‟ are a total

of 5% among the general population. More than three in four women are "insecure about the

way they look" and more than one in three women think the way women are portrayed in the

media "makes them feel overweight", according to a You Gov survey for The Money Program.

By spending billions of dollars exhorting anti-aging products and using super-skinny, airbrushed

models and celebrities to pitch them, the beauty industry has created An Ideal Woman in the

minds of anyone who watches TV or picks up a magazine. The Ideal Woman is thin with

flawless skin, no matter her age. And she has drawer full of products that miraculously make her

that way.

As a result, there is a lot of money to be made in beauty, now more than ever. Every month,

there seems to be a new product on the market promising youth for older women and glamour

for younger women. Every magazine has a huge beauty section because the advertisers are

willing to pay big bucks for huge glossy ads about eye shadow or lipstick. The makeup that the

model is wearing for a cover picture is rarely the makeup that is credited in the magazine.

Makeup artists use whatever they want, usually little-known brands that do not have advertising

budgets, then the beauty editor gives credit to the magazine's biggest advertisers. And it's no

wonder beauty is a big business.

What we see everyday on television is not what reality is. The image of beauty that is being

portrayed is unreal and all made up. Having a size zero figure has been set as the standard of

beauty, dismissing the fact that bulky women may be more beautiful than a slim girl. In this day

and age, beauty goes hand in hand with youth, so, it‟s a distorted image for women: women are

trying to look younger in an attempt to look beautiful. They do not realize the importance of the

natural process of aging; aging is taken as an insult. It is hard to distinguish between mothers and

daughters. Mothers used to be the paramount of simplicity and decency, now they are in

competition with the younger generation. Nowadays mothers are trying to look like their

daughters elder sisters. So many people are obsessing more than ever about their jowls falling or

lines appearing. It's turning people to cosmetic surgery. At the same time, you have young

people trying to look older and piling on makeup at places like Sephora, which has whole lines

of makeup geared for teens and preteens. More and more young girls are making themselves up

in an effort to appear older. This is what the beauty industry is doing to our society. Money is

being splashed on outer look while the inner look is the same unchanged.

Teenagers make it a habit to stop eating rather than eating less and exercising. Girls are

getting manicures and pedicures to keep themselves up to date with latest fashion. In addition

herbal facials, oxygen blowing hair rebounding is something girls are getting addicted to. Earlier

brides used to get facials but these days everyone is getting it done.

Beauty industry has not only been victimizing women; men are its new target. In the

present age men are more into looking „beautiful‟. Male saloons have opened up just as a

reflecting of how much people believe in outer beauty-similar to porcelain jar. Men are getting

their eyebrows plucked, waxing and hair streaking done. Male models have also become a victim

of beauty industry. A few years ago this trend started, but at that time only grooms used to get

facials done in order to look nice on their wedding day but at present men of every age, staring

from teenage, are following this ridiculous trend. Metro-sexuality has also become quite

significant because of this.

Another setback that we have come across is that we are moving away from our roots,

traditions and customs. Beauty industry is misinterpreting our culture. This is not what we are!

The half naked models that we see on the ramp don‟t portray the real Pakistani girl and they

usually have an over exaggerated image and they way models are portrayed that‟s too unreal and

fake. Wearing short dresses, exposing more than necessary has become the base of the fashion

industry. We see models everyday, in the „electric boxes‟ at our home, wearing tank-tops, skirts,

and backless. Can we wear such clothes everyday? No! We can not. Firstly our religion does not

allow n secondly the kind of society we live in is a lot more conservative than we think. It is said

that the open-mindedness is the sign of progress. Though its not the truth. Deviating from our

norms and traditions in the name of progress is not right for any cultures development. We can

be advance and open-minded within the boundaries that have been set for us by our religion and

culture.

The „high society‟ of our country is the one that has deviated from reality significant ly.

They are usually the ones attending late night parties, where smoking, drinking and (at times)

obscenity is quite common. They are the ones who try to follow whatever the fashion magazines

define as the latest trend. In an attempt to be the trendsetters they buy all the senseless things that

these magazines tell them to posses in order to be up to date with the new fashion trends. How

many times have we seen girls with short height wearing the once trendy „Patyala Shalwars‟,

even though they made them look shorter and broader than what they really are? How often do

we see women older than our mothers wearing „Capris‟, not realizing the fact that they lose their

decency? This is what fashion doing to us. People are following trends that do not compliment

their personalities, rather make them look like utter misfits.

The beauty industry bombards us with images of perfection - slim, gorgeous creatures

offering pots and potions that promise to uplift, de-wrinkle and beautify. This fuels a sense of

insecurity among women, and this drives sales in the beauty industry. Growth in the market for

anti-ageing products that promise to make women look younger and firmer is also riding on such

insecurities.

Besides the negative aspect that has been brought about by the beauty industry there is

something good in it too. Women and men alike a more well-aware of themselves; they have

realized the importance of looking presentable. This has given the women the confidence that

they lacked before.

So by widening the definition of beauty, we believe that more women will gain the

confidence, because they will see beauty is closer to them than the beauty of a supermodel that is

so far, and people could give up. It is the dream of every woman to be beautiful but

misinterpretation of the very concept of “beauty” leads to a complex in which any route is

acquired to attain beauty though it may lead to harmful consequences. It is not cosmetics and

surgeries but ethics and moral values that give a woman her real beauty.