gender – Culture Critically

By Hillary Hardig and Liv Provosty

Beauty Standards are Perpetually Evolving

How do we determine what makes a person beautiful? Women are routinely pressured to fit certain standards of beauty. But like fashion and interior design, these standards shift over time varying by culture and era. The question is: Why do we fight so hard to meet the standards of perfection when we know that what is considered perfect is continuously changing? In Ancient Greece, the ideal woman was plump and fair-skinned, signifying wealth. During the Victorian era, women achieved an hourglass figure by cinching their waist with corset undergarments. For women of the 1920’s, beauty was androgyny. Instead of emphasizing their curves, women masked their chests, and wore clothes that downplayed the waist and hips. During the Golden Age of Hollywood, the hourglass figure was brought back to life with Marilyn Monroe as the ideal standard of beauty putting an end to the boyish figure trend that emerged in the Roaring Twenties. Coined “heroin chic”, models of the 1990s were so thin some thought their bodies mimicked those of an unhealthy drug user. With the development of social media, beauty standards are now treated like the trends of fast fashion and being reshaped at the click of a button.

Runway Models and Cover Girls to Influencers and Insta Baddies

The blueprints for “the ideal” standards of beauty have shifted significantly in the last twenty years. Print media is dying in comparison to digital, and it is creating the new frontier of marketing and advertising. Social media plays the role of democratizing content production. It is an incredible innovation that has allowed for the expansion of free speech, art, and learning at the largest scale in history. This democratization has also shifted the culture of “beauty:” Now social media users have access to the means of producing, editing, and sharing content. The phenomenon of staging a magazine cover worthy photoshoot requires a photographer, stylist, beauty team, professional photo editors, a supermodel or celebrity. This process can be equated to an update to an influencer’s Instagram feed. Posts consist of the influencer, her outfit-possibly sent as part of a clothing brands influencer promotion program- her makeup, a tutorial could be produced for followers, camera self-timer, and a photo editing application. Similar factors of achieving the desired standard of beauty are present in both scenarios. However, the digital scenario may be even more dangerous, because “beauty” is presented constantly. And it’s not just a rack of magazine covers, it’s an endless feed, an algorithm that curates an explore page of one image of perfection after another.

Influencers do not intentionally market themselves as unattainable standards for beauty, in contrast their success is often linked to “relatability.” The “reliability” factor makes it easier for the influencer and follower to bond, to become linked in a parasocial relationship that sells an image of themselves and often sells a product. According to Dr. Brooke Erin Duffy, an assistant professor at Cornell University studying self-presentation on Instagram, “Nobody wants to be called a fake. Influencers very much feel they need to present themselves authentically while getting the best image possible.” But as Duffy states, this “relatable” factor often does not extend itself to unflattering images or vulnerabilities (x). And with this parasocial relationship built upon the pretense of “relatability” it opens up avenues for comparison more directly than the 2000’s Vogue cover or the Chanel runway show. This assertion aligns with social comparison theory, meaning that an individual, often a girl or young woman, compares themselves at a higher tendency to someone they perceive as similar to themselves (x). While it may not seem that a fifteen year old girl and a young woman with millions of followers have a lot in common, similarity has been crafted between them through the follower and influencer dynamic. This dynamic has flattened the hierarchies of image production allowing influencers to feel “more real” in comparison to a model on a cover the fifteen year old girl sees in line at checkout.

Facetune

The popular photo-editing app FaceTune is self-described as “providing a range of powerful tools giving you the ability to precisely edit your selfies and have fun expressing the best of YOU-giving you the confidence in creating & sharing photos, knowing you are showing the best of yourself” (x). This application is very popular, with over sixty million downloads (x). Since the coronavirus lockdown downloads of FaceTune have increased by twenty percent (x). FaceTune is known for its easy to use interface allowing for photo retouching and selfie alterations like skin smoothing and teeth-whitening to slimming body modification. The ability to alter one’s physical appearance drastically with such ease opens up a serious concern over self image, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and body modification procedures.

Startling statistics have been reported in link to use of Facetune. According to a study from the International Journal of Eating Disorders, teens who edit their appearance in photos with applications like Facetune were more likely to report high scores related to eating and body image issues (x). Additionally, Dr. Ramani Durvasula, critical psychologist and professor, credits the phenomenon of photo editing at this level to causing individuals to seek cosmetic alterations at younger ages (x). All of this to conclude with, Zeev Farbman, the CEO of Lightricks, the parent company of Facetune, “[I] didn’t intend for users to manipulate their bodies on the app,” although it is advertised very clearly as a selling-point of the application, “I’m not sure it’s our place to decide how people use the app, (x).” Farbman does not welcome the association between Facetune and damaging body image, however if the developers of the technology distance from responsibility for this phenomenon, then how are the dangerous consequences like increased eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and body modification checked. It assumes that the weight of responsible, safe use of the application falls onto the shoulders of the users. However, some may not see young and impressionable users as entirely capable, particularly when the stakes are so high.

Where Does the Responsibility Lie?

In September of 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported on a collection of internal Facebook documents which it says exhibits how the platform is exceedingly aware of the harmful effects Instagram has on the mental health of teens. The reported research, done by Facebook, focuses on mental health effects linked to young users being shown certain content, which can then cause or exacerbate depression, eating disorders, or other mental health issues. It’s no surprise that Facebook would not publicly disclose these findings. Facebook’s data collection policy plays a central role in whether users see, or do not see specific content. The Wall Street Journal reported that Instagram made at least one out of three teen girls feel worse about their bodies, and that, “13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram”.

In efforts to grow engagement and financial gains for shareholders, Instagram needs to retain user’s attention and keep them active for long periods of time. The Journal reports that, “Facebook executives have struggled to find ways to reduce Instagram’s harm while keeping people on the platform, according to internal presentations on the topic”. Facebook says it plans to develop a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13. Worried about children’s safety, a group of 44 US attorneys general wrote to Facebook to reconsider the new version. Facebook says even though kids under the age of 13 aren’t supposed to sign up for the photo-sharing app now, many still do. Facebook responded saying that the company would not show ads “in any Instagram experience developed for people under the age of 13”. But harm to teens isn’t only coming from advertisements. Content that exploits the vulnerability of children is. In either case, sizable data collection is what enables the harm.

Democratic FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra tweeted, “Given the financial incentives embedded in its surveillance-based business model, it is yet another sign that the company cannot be trusted with our data.” Big tech needs to be asking themselves if their profit pushing business models built on the exploitation of teenagers are worth the potential damage done. If so, then to what end?

by Maddy Grumet

Wanda imagines a world based on conventional gender roles. Still from *WandaVision*.

In WandaVision, Wanda Maximoff is exhibiting very human maladaptive coping behaviors in the face of grief. In previous Marvel productions, the audience learns that Wanda has experienced an unfathomable amount of loss. With her introduction to the Marvel universe comes the knowledge that her parents had died in a bombing of her home country. In the Age of Ultron Avengers movie, Wanda’s fraternal twin brother, Pietro, is killed in battle. Finally, in Avengers: Infinity War, Wanda watches as her beloved Vision is demolished by Thanos in his pursuit for the infinity stone attached to Vision. In the wake of these traumatic losses, Wanda is forced to confront her pain as she tries to figure out how to navigate a world that has been so cruel to her.

Trauma is, by one definition, an event outside the range of the human experience. By curating a world without trauma in WandaVision, Wanda is harnessing her superhuman powers in an attempt to control things that are normally beyond human control. For Wanda, a griefless world looks like television. In her younger days, Wanda learned about American culture and life by watching television shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Brady Bunch. The world that Wanda creates in Westview, New Jersey is a projection of what she has seen and learned from these and different traditional American television shows. As a result, Wanda’s vision of a “perfect” world looks like one with traditional gender roles as an embodiment of a happy family and social life.

In older sitcom shows, gender roles are both prominent and clear cut. Typically, the men are portrayed as helpless breadwinners who prioritize things like beer and sports while the women are portrayed as too smart to be stuck in their housewife and motherly duties. In Episode 1: “Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience,” Wanda and Vision assume these very traditional gender roles in their efforts to entertain Vision’s boss and his wife for dinner. The episode is shot in a “classic sitcom three-camera soundstage setup” (Vulture). Wanda and Vision interact in a slightly awkward, intentionally stiff way throughout the episode, something that is very similar to sitcoms like Bewitched. Wanda assumes the traditional role of “housewife” as she brainstorms ways to satisfy Vision on their upcoming anniversary and, as the episode progresses, scrambles to prepare the food for dinner in an I Love Lucy style. Vision, on the other hand, assumes the traditional role of the husband who provides for the family by working a desk job. Although Wanda and Vision both assume these very traditional roles, they simultaneously poke fun at many of the sexist conventions of the time. By doing so, WandaVision both masters the concept of a traditional sitcom and calls out the sexism that existed in the shows that Wanda used to learn about American life.

In Episode 8: “Previously On,” WandaVision slightly steers away from the sitcom archetypes and style to dive deeper into Wanda’s traumatic past. In an effort to learn about the origin of her powers, Wanda’s co-character Agnes forces her to confront her grief and the reality of what she has experienced. Agnes walks Wanda through memories of Sokovia and her family, the HYDRA base where Wanda was kept as she developed her powers to help the Nazi-adjacent, her relationship with Vision, and eventually reveals the truth of her curation of Westview. This episode demonstrates a key idea: grief is inescapable. Even Wanda, someone with otherworldly powers, is incapable of escaping her grief and trauma for good. Wanda’s creation of Westview and, as the audience later learns, the version of Vision living there with her demonstrates the extent that people will go to seek remedy in the face of trauma.

On its surface, WandaVision is a show based on familiar, traditional sitcoms and the life of a grieving Avenger. However, the sitcom acts as a veil for the show’s depiction of some very complex feelings: denial, anger, depression, loneliness, struggle, and, in the end, a form of acceptance. For Wanda, escaping grief means living out her life as a character on a sitcom. However, the show eventually reveals that this escape is not possible; Wanda has to shut down her sitcom and curated reality and come to terms with her trauma. Although not everyone has the power to curate their own worlds in the face of grief, Wanda is demonstrating what it means to be human and to process the pain we feel.

Tag: gender

Navigating Trauma in a Cruel World with Wanda Maximoff