That's creepy

hyldemoer · Post by **hyldemoer** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 12:24 am

At what age is the way one appears naturally no longer acceptable?

At what age is it acceptable to not be comfortable with one's appearance and try to change it with makeup, hair coloring, underwire and restrictive undergarments, surgery, et cetera?

Why?

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 12:33 am

More to the point, at what age is it OK for your mom to hate and want to change all those things about you?

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 6:41 am

What excellent workmanship. Actually, I think perhaps you should send a photo like your "improved" version above in to the company and ask for a digital makeover. Just insist that they not erase your child's natural beauty.

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:29 am

hyldemoer wrote:At what age is the way one appears naturally no longer acceptable?

At what age is it acceptable to not be comfortable with one's appearance and try to change it with makeup, hair coloring, underwire and restrictive undergarments, surgery, et cetera?

Why?

It's not the age, so much... ...although these pageants reek of paedophilia.

But a certain amount of modification of one's appearance is politeness. Just as a certain amount of diplomacy in one's speech is politeness. But there is a point, or perhaps a grey area, where this shades into misrepresentation. In cosmetics it's offensive. In speech it is offensive. It's lying, either way.

When I decided to grow my beard long, it was partly as an advertisement for the Druidic Workshops I was doing. Look the part, and all that. But "friends" seemed to take this personally. They certainly made enough personal remarks. I just kept quiet, but I remember thinking how rude they would think me if I made similar personal comments to them. One thing that stuck in my mind was the repeated information that I would look "so much younger if I trimmed my beard." So the assumption was that I wanted to look younger. EVERYONE wants to look younger! (Presumably babes-in-arms want to look like foetuses, and foetuses want to look like eggs and sperm... ) t'aint so, brothers and sisters, t'aint so...

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:49 am

It is kind of strange to compare this to the caricature I sat for at the fair a while ago. Caricatures are an exaggeration one's characteristic differences while the glamor style tries to eliminate them.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 10:33 am

emmline wrote:I guess it is vile Nano. I just can't get over how utterly absurd it is to feel outrage. It's a parody of itself it's so stupid.

Things like that just put me in a bad mood, I guess. I don't know how much it has to do with being a guy, but although I know that makeovers are often seen in positive terms by women, there's also a negative implication for me. Whether the positive shifts to negative depends on the context I'm witnessing. But I see your point.

There's also the possiblility that some parents might not be hankering after the lie of "improvement", but are thinking exactly in terms of going for doll-ness, to see what a doll to approximate the child might look like. Not my idea of fun, but, hey.

hyldemoer · Post by **hyldemoer** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 12:52 pm

s1m0n wrote:More to the point, at what age is it OK for your mom to hate and want to change all those things about you?

Are we so sure its the parents who are the first person to request the photos of their child to be fixed up?

I recall when students were asked to draw a picture of themselves I was one of the few girls in my class in grammar school who went for realism.
Its clearly in my memory that I was shocked to see many of the other girls in class with myself fashioned pictures of themselves as if they were wearing lots of makeup.

I recall girls refusing to wear their glasses (sometimes to the point of "loosing" or "accidently" breaking their glasses several times) and telling me they thought they looked ugly in their glasses.

I recall friends hating to wear braces on their teeth because they were hurt twice, once by the orthodonist and the second time from people calling them names at school.

I've been wondering these past few hours at what age I put my foot down and refused to allow my mother to give me a "Toni" (home permanent).

I recall most of us girls were given our "Toni" a day or 2 before our class photo.
My mother would tell me I was fortunate that she was giving me a "Toni" because, as a child, she had to go to bed with her hair done up in rags if she wanted to have pretty hair like Shirley Temple the next day.
I recall not understanding why she wanted to look like Shirley Temple.

I'm not so sure my tastes were the norm.
I might have balked at the concept because I got all my princess fantasies worked out with a once a year dance recital.

This was back in the 50s and 60s but even now I have one friend who tells me she's convinced her 3 year old niece is a lesbian because she doesn't like to wear "girly" clothing or have her hair styled.

missy · Post by **missy** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 1:40 pm

It took me 3 months to find a dress to wear for my son's wedding. Tom had to go and buy a suit and tie for it because he didn't own any, and when he went into the men's store, the guy "sized" him up by saying "one time deal, huh?".

If that tells you anything............

brianormond · Post by **brianormond** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:37 pm

-Unreal appearance standards can be applied to inanimate objects too.
Roz Chast did a funny New Yorker magazine cartoon featuring the "Wonder Wallet" - to the effect it looks like there's $700.00 in it but really only $7.00...

koktach · Post by **koktach** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 4:06 pm

Ok, it seems that you got the social part covered, it's horrible.

On technical side, those children makeovers are some bad photoshoping, I mean you can see it's fake from a long distance. If you really want to have this done, go to someone that can actually do it properly.

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:09 pm

Hyldemoer, good post that sure takes me back.

I remember the "Toni" all too well. I got one and only one. My hair has a bit of natural curl and the Toni gave me an afro.

My mom and I washed my hair many times trying to tame the curls down a bit. Up until then, she'd just turned the ends under as it dried(which is what I do to this day) or she'd pin curl it. Oh yes, the infamous Toni.
I think that"look" might have come from the fact that our moms would have grown up in the depression era, when Shirley Temple was all the rage.

Yeah, the girls who wouldn't wear glasses, I remember them. I've worn them since seven and didn't care. I will admit that I did not wear mine all the time, but that's because I didn't have to then, and they were just another thing to be aggravated with.

I did wear makeup in high school for a bit- couldn't get the "Twiggy" look with out tons of black goo on the eyes, remember? But by the time I was oh, about 17, I'd given up all that stuff. I don't even own a tube of lipstick to this day. Oh, I forgot I do have some, but that's for when I dressed up in a 1920s dress I made. That's the only time I've worn makeup since time outta mind.

As for princess fantasies....as a kid I only wanted to ride my horse, play my music, draw pictures and rampage all over our farm with my brother . I never liked "frilly" stuff and still don't. My grandaughter , on the other hand, loves dresses as much as toys and she's almost 4. It's all a mystery to me.

alurker · Post by **alurker** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:22 pm

missy wrote:when he went into the men's store, the guy "sized" him up by saying "one time deal, huh?".

I thought I was the only one who got that reaction.

A-Musing · Post by **A-Musing** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:30 pm

Fashioning, or refashioning always has an air of the absurd. Especially in retrospect. Pretty exotic stuff.
Aside. In a recent talk, Jane Fonda, (love her or leave her...sigh...)spoke about a book-signing tour, around the world. Having spent her life in a "fashionable" element of American society, with it's penchant for re-doing nature, (plastic surgery, hair dye, bleached teeth, gobs of cosmetics, false this and that, etc.) she was impressed by the faces she saw on this trip. She thought of these foreigners as "owning their own faces." It impressed her quite deeply. Those non-doctored-up faces carried an unmistakable "authenticity," that's missing from the dolled-up mugs she's used to being around. She's not having any more "work" done on her own famous kisser, as a result. Live and learn, eh?

BoneQuint · Post by **BoneQuint** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:16 pm

It's funny how this "hyper-real" stuff can creep into so many aspects of life, and we hardly even notice it. A hundred years ago, there were many varieties of apples available, with many different tastes. But now only a small fraction remain, dominated by the "Red Delicious," which has been bred for exaggeratedly-"perfect" looks and for shelf life, leaving it with a bland flavor and poor texture.

Why The Red Delicious No Longer Is:

Consider the fate of America's favorite apple. It emerged from an Iowa orchard in 1880 as a round, blushed yellow fruit of surpassing sweetness.

But like a figure in a TV makeover show, it was an apple that its handlers could not leave alone. ... "They eventually went too far and ended up with apples the public didn't want to eat," said Lee Calhoun, an apple historian and retired orchardist in Pittsboro, N.C.

It's also interesting to look at movies made in Hollywood compared to those made in other countries. In the foreign movies, the actors often actually look like people!

hyldemoer · Post by **hyldemoer** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:32 am

Apples?
Any commercially offered apple tree is going to be grafted from a stock that they know they can sell.
No commercial nursery is going to spend time on product unless they have the time and profit margin to experiment.

Which I guess is like anything.
If you're in business to make money you do it with products you know the largest population is willing to spend money on
and so many people confuse price with value.

But really, at what point do we learn to want to comform beyond behavior, with our physical appearence?

Is it really a conformity to a standard
or, because that standard is so unreal, is it just an excuse to justify self hate?