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Stories of prejudice essay
The Influence of the Media on Women’s Beauty Standards
Stories of prejudice essay
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Society, especially western, tends to conceptualize beauty through the use of publicity and cinema. We are under constant bombardment from consumer related magazine ads, billboards, television commercials, and movies about what “beautiful” people look like and how we should imitate them. This standard is overwhelmingly portrayed as a white beauty standard. Starting from a very young age this standard of beauty is created in our minds. We want to look like these actors and models; we want to be thin, fit, youthful looking, a symmetrical face and even have a particular race. We accept this beauty standard; we notice our various faults among ourselves and self-critique. We try to emulate the models as best we can; we forget that these standards are not reality. Publicity models and the most popular actors do not represent the majority of us and it is a foolish and unattainable dream to attempt to change ourselves to their beauty. The pressure society puts on us can cause low self-esteem and diseases such as anorexia. But we must look at the antithesis of society’s conception of this white standard, our minorities. Portraying this beauty standard to the polar opposites is more than racist. It is destructive to the minority community in that it creates resentment, low self-esteem, and a perverse hierarchy where minorities judge themselves and others on their proximity to the white beauty standard. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison critiques the white beauty standard that causes the black minority to feel a destructive self-hatred towards themselves and their fellow blacks because their self-perception is an unrealistic and unattainable beauty seen in publicity and films. This research paper’s aim is to present the influence of ...
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...ore is entitled to affection and comfort. Pecola is ugly in this society. Phyllis Klotman recounts this scene and its importance in his article, Dick-and-Jane and the Shirley Temple Sensibility in the Bluest Eye:
“When the little pink-and-yellow girl begins to cry, Pecola’s mother comforts her with tenderness: “Hush, baby, hush. Come here. Oh, Lord, look at your dress. Don’t cry no more. Polly will change it’” (p. 85). For her own child she has harsh and bitter words of rejection: “Pick up that wash and get out of here, so I can get this mess cleaned up” (ibid.). Through her mother’s blurred vision of the pink, white, and golden world of the Fishers, Pecola learns that she is ugly, unacceptable, and especially unloved.” (Klotman 124.)
The white beauty standard causes Pauline to show love to a foreign child and contempt for her own flesh and blood.
Throughout the novel, Pecola is easily manipulated into believing what society tells her, and soon becomes fixated in achieving “beauty”. Due to certain events, Pecola comes to believe that beauty is the panacea to her life’s problems and the key to happiness, demonstrating how manipulating the Master Narrative can be. One of the more subtle events that affect Pecola’s mindset is when she goes to purchase a Mary Jane candy bar. When Pecola goes up to Mr. Yacobowski with her money, he barely acknowledges her: “At some fixed point in time and space he senses that he need not waste the effort of a glance. He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see” (48). To Mr. Yacobowski, Pecola is so far from the socially acceptable standards: she is a black, poor, and ugly child. Mr. Yacobowski’s blunt ignorance is similar to many other people’s reactions when Pecola is around. Pecola doesn’t know how to think for herself yet, and from this encounter she is forced to see herself, in the eyes of Mr....
In “As I Lay Dying” by William Faulkner Addie Bundren seems to portray hollow values that destroy her family. For example Darl narrates, “He kneels and squints along the edge of them, then he lowers them and takes up the adze. A good carpenter. Addie Bundren could not want a better one, a better box to lie in. It will give her confidence and comfort” (699). It is interesting that Addie chose Cash, but it is clear that he is a good carpenter. Not much was said about Cash and how much Addie loves him. This same idea can be said for Toni Morrison’s, “The Bluest Eye” with Pecola. Pecola is the “scapegoat” of the community and suffers from abuse. For example, “Mrs. Breedlove entered with a tightly packed laundry bag. In one gallop she was on Pecola, and with the back of her hand knocked her to the floor. Pecola slid in the pie juice, one leg folding under her. Mrs. Breedlove yanked her up by the arm, slapped her again, and in a voice thin with anger, abused Pecola directly and Frieda and me by implication” (107). Mrs. Breedlove wants perfectio...
The Infant Child plays a huge role in Blanche’s early life. As a result of her mother’s death, Blanche has a fearful temperament, and
In the novel, the Black narrator Claudia talks about how the ideal beauty of their society is White women, stating, “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs – all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. ‘Here,’ they said, ‘this is beautiful, and if you are on this day “worthy” you may have it’ (Morrison 20). This quote is significant because it proves that the culture promotes the appearance of White women over Black women. Due to the large amounts of racism, many African Americans believed they lived in poverty because they were black. The narrator explained, “The Breedloves did not live in a storefront because they were having temporary difficulty adjusting to the cutbacks at the plant. They lived there because they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they were ugly” (Morrison 38). The discrimination was so extreme in the novel that the African American characters started to idealize the white race. One example of this is when Pecola, a black girl, yearned for blue eyes because she believes all of the cruelty in her life will then go away. This strong desire ultimately leads to insanity (Morrison 174). The psychological suffering that many of the young female characters went through is result of discrimination towards a racial
The characterization of Cato and Emerson’s stepmother and father is what lead to the parental neglect on the two brothers. In the short story, “The Farmer’s Children,” the stepmother is characterized as
In The Bluest Eye, Morrison describes the absurd and racist standard by which the characters are judged. And through the actions taken by each character, that absurd standard becomes more defined, the conflict more poignant. In this particular work, it is the American ideal of beauty that makes Pecola resign her self-image as ugly and it is Pecola's reaction to this standard, her futile wish to become beautiful, that drives her into madness and thus completely exposes the absurd and wrongful nature of this standard. And yet who created this standard? It is present in movies, on candy wrappers. It is completely visible, yet the creator of this standard is somewhere else, never appears as a character.
Two of the major instances of sexual abuse present in the novel involved both Mr. Henry with Frieda and Cholly with Pecola. The incident with Mr. Henry, while very serious...
As mentioned previously in the historicization of fatness, fatness is a relative condition, dependent on the historical and cultural context, which is highly dependent on race. As such, the characterization of women as fat occurred very differently among white women and black women, therefore the fat stigma and connotations of fatness that they face are different. Consequently, it is important to understand the way in which black women’s appearance, within beauty and femininity, is racialized. Black women have long been conceptualized as outsiders, according to Eurocentric beauty standards and femininity. They fall into a categorization of extremes in which they are either asexual or hypersexual, masculine or excessively curvaceous, distinctly
Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye contributes to the study of the American novel by bringing to light an unflattering side of American history. The story of a young black girl named Pecola, growing up in Lorain, Ohio in 1941 clearly illustrates the fact that the "American Dream" was not available to everyone. The world that Pecola inhabits adores blonde haired blue eyed girls and boys. Black children are invisible in this world, not special, less than nothing. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you lesser was cultivated by both whites and blacks. White skin meant beauty and privilege and that idea was not questioned at this time in history. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you less of a person contaminated black people's lives in many different ways. The taunts of schoolboys directed at Pecola clearly illustrate this fact; "It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth" (65). This self hatred also possessed an undercurrent of anger and injustice that eventually led to the civil rights movement.
In “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, the audience is shown the skewed idea of beauty and how whiteness in the 1940s was the standard of beauty. This idea of beauty is still prevalent today which is why the novel is powerful and relevant. Narrated by a nine year old girl, this novel illustrates that this standard of beauty distorts the lives of black people, more specifically, black women and children. Not only was it a time when being white was considered being superior, being a black woman was even worse because even women weren’t appreciated and treated as equal back then. Set in Lorain, Ohio, this novel has a plethora of elements that parallels Toni Morrison’s personal life. The population in Lorain back then was considered to be ethnically asymmetrical, where segregation was still legal but the community was mostly integrated. Black and white children could attend the same schools and neighborhoods by then would be inhabited by a mix of black and white families. The theme of race and beauty is portrayed through the lives of three different families and stories told by the characters: Claudia, Pecola, and Frieda. Through the exploration of the families’ and character’s struggles, Morrison demonstrates the horrid nature of racism as well as the caustic temperament of the suppressed idea of white beauty on the individual, and on the society.
When women are exposed to these insane mainstream beauty standards which are communicated everywhere, the images seen will most likely have an implication on a women’s ideas of their beauty, attractiveness, self-esteem and identity (Walker, 2014). If they don't look like the women they see on the media they consider themselves as ugly. This is especially with regard to black women, as they are vulnerable to these beauty ideals based on a white women’s physical features because of the fact that these European beauty standers are emphasising lighter skin tone and straighter hair that exclude black women and is basically impossible or very hard to obtain these features. These beauty standers can have very damaging effects to black women in the form of self-hatred and this is especially common with women with darker skin. (Bryant. 2013).
Toni Morrison’s Bluest Eye follows the narrative of Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl who wishes for beauty. “Mocked by others for the dark skin, brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for blonde hair and blue eyes that she believes will finally let her fit in”(Morrison, Forward). Through the narrative her dream grows more severe her life changes and she slowly dwells in to madness. Which brings up powerful questions such as How is beauty constructed by society? Is it the same for all genders.
The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison is an African American writer, who believes in fighting discrimation and segregation with a mental preparation. Tony focuses on many black Americans to the white American culture and concludes that blacks are exploited because racism regarding white skin color within the black community. The bluest eye is a story about a young black girl named Pecola, who grew up in Ohio. Pecola adores blonde haired blue eyes girls and boys. She thinks white skin meant beauty and freedom and that thought was not a subject at this time in history. This book is really about the impact on a child’s state of mind. Tony Morrison has divided her book into four seasons: autumn, winter, spring, and summer. The main characters in this book are three girls, Claudia and Frieds McTeer, and Pecola Breedlove. Why was Pecola considered a case? Pecola was a poor girl who had no place to go. The county placed her in the McTeer’shouse for a few days until they could decide what to do until the family was reunited. Pecola stayed at the McTeer’s house because she was being abuse at her house and Cholly had burned up his house. The first event that happens in the book was that her menstrual cycle had started. She didn’t know what to do; she thought she was bleeding to death. When the girls were in the bed, Pecola asked, “If it was true that she can have a baby now?” So now the only concern is if she is raped again she could possibly get pregnant. Pecola thought if she had blue eyes and was beautiful, that her parents would stop fighting and become a happy family.In nursery books, the ideal girl would have blonde hair and blue eyes. There is a lot of commercial ads have all showed the same ideal look just like the nursery book has. Pecola assumes she has this beautiful and becomes temporary happy, but not satisfied. Now, Pecola wants to be even more beautiful because she isn’t satisfied with what she has. The fact is that a standard of beautyis established, the community is pressured to play the game. Black people and the black culture is judged as being out of place and filthy. Beauty, in heart is having blond hair, blue eyes, and a perfect family. Beauty is then applied to everyone as a kind of level of class.
The concept of physical appearance as a virtue is the center of the social problems portrayed in the novel. Thus the novel unfolds with the most logical responses to this overpowering impression of beauty: acceptance, adjustment, and rejection (Samuels 10). Through Pecola Breedlove, Morrison presents reactions to the worth of physical criteria. The beauty standard that Pecola feels she must live up to causes her to have an identity crisis. Society's standard has no place for Pecola, unlike her "high yellow dream child" classmate, Maureen Peals, who fits the mold (Morrison 62).
During this time period, white communities valued Maureen’s overall structure and “light-skin” more than the darker colored black children. Maureen seemed to make Pecola the target at school because Pecola was darker skinned and ugly. For example, Morrison writes that Maureen kept screaming to Pecola, “I am cute…and you [Pecola] ugly! Black and ugly!” this scene demonstrates how Pocola’s self-esteem is grinding down on her (Morrison 73). Another scene that depicts how the community viewed white standards is when Claudia makes reference to dolls. Morrison writes that Claudia does not understand the difference between Maureen and other black girls, “we were less. Nicer, brighter but still lesser…the slippery light in the eyes of our teacher when they encountered the Maureen Peals of the world. What was the secret? What did we lack?” is a clear example of how the community saw darker skinned black girls compared to light-skinned white standards (Morrison 74). I really found this quote interesting when Morrison writes “we,” clearly showing two sides of the community. One side is the darker, Pocola’s of the world and the Maureen’s of the