“The Beauty Standard” is a collage that I created in order to show how women are expected to look in American society. At first glance, the collage seems to consist of many half naked skinny women. While this is true, when you look closer there is a lot more to it. Not only are there photos of what the media suggests is beautiful in American society, but there are also photos of how this suggested beauty standard affects women and girls in America. This standard is first implied at a very young age through cartoon characters such as Disney princesses and Jessica Rabbit; and is further enforced through the toys of young girls, such as Barbie dolls. Little girls are so constantly exposed to these images of “beauty” that by a young age they already have an understanding of what is considered beautiful. This is before they even start to read magazines. The collage also consists of images of magazine covers that are popular amongst young girls and women. They too show images of young skinny “beautiful” women on the covers, and encourage you to read the magazine so you can learn about how to be beautiful too. This idea of needing to be beautiful can be seen in the images of the young girls included in the collage that are trying to imitate what they have been exposed to. Some of them have already started to cake on their makeup and strike a pose. There is nothing natural about a little girl posing with makeup on, it is all learned behavior that American culture has socialized its youth with. Before the age of ten there are girls already imitating the body language of fully developed women that they see in the media. I created “The Beauty Standard” with images of different sizes in order to put greater emphasis on certain ideas. The two larger images in the center of the collage (The Barbie doll, and the girl in pink trying to look like the Barbie doll) are meant to be one of the main focal points of the collage to show the direct correlation between images that girls are constantly exposed to and what affect those images have on the girls. I chose the background of a splotchy mix of pink and blue because these images are not only seen by American women, but also by American men. This means that men too have this “ideal woman” image in their heads that they expect real life women to live up to.
“The Beauty Standard” includes many images that come from the media, cartoons, pageant websites, personal photos, and photos found through internet searches.
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