Since returning home from my travels, I find myself becoming increasingly bemused by the obsession with personal appearance here in the West and, more pointedly, our need to pluck, preen & paint ourselves, seemingly as society dictates. Every day we are bombarded with a superfluity of seductive advertising within the media – whether television, print or online – all of it imploring us, cajoling us, pushing us to conform to a certain image. What each individual ‘looks like’, down to the nth degree, should not – in my opinion – be this important (and certainly not the sole measure of a person)! However, what we wear, what we plaster on our faces, fingers and toes, how we coif our hair – our social-skin, if you will – does (particularly if challenged) have the potential to become an incendiary topic for a lot of people.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m in no way saying that I stand smugly apart from the rest of you; that I alone am blessed with an awareness of the power and guile of advertising. Nor am I immune to the almost religious fervour – the unshakeable belief-in-oneself – that can lead to some of the biggest appearance faux pas since David Guest firs–– well… since David Guest really. As mentioned in an earlier blog, I once had an utterly ridiculous hairstyle. What I didn’t mention is that, at various points in my life, I also thought it ‘cool’ to wear paisley-patterned braces hanging down around my arse, Pony ‘linebacker’ trainers with huge tongues flapping loose, black ‘waffle’ skin-tight trousers and electric-blue leather boating shoes with tassels…
One evening last week my senses were assaulted by this piece of utter nonsense:
I can’t understand why women (or any men, for that matter) would want to intentionally clog up their pores. Why the hell would you want to do that? Who decided that pores – visible or not – are bad? Who actually wants an all-over plastic air-brushed face? Who genuinely thinks that having your face all one colour or tone looks natural and/or attractive?! I must walk past hundreds of women each week whose faces are covered in foundation; women who (I assume) hold a firm conviction that (for whatever reason) this is needed. I could be wrong here – and please, if I am, let me know – but I’ve a sneaking suspicion that, if asked, if they dared speak the truth to their friends, girlfriends or wives, that most men would agree a face plastered in foundation is actually a bit of a turn-off.
What exactly is wrong with having ‘fine lines’, ‘crow’s feet’ or freckles? It never did Jacqueline Bisset any harm.
You know, 20 years on, I may well have an even more ridiculous hairstyle than those awful curtains; it’s just I can’t see it and, if I have, no-one has had the decency to tell me about it. Therein lies my point. Is it at all possible that we’re becoming 1) a little too scared of hurting the feelings of others by telling them that, say, their lipstick of choice looks ‘a bit naff’ and, conversely, 2) we’re becoming a little too sensitive to such comments; are we more likely to take offence and regard what could be sound advice as a personal attack? Let’s, just for a moment, consider this from a different angle. I think that you and I should talk about bogeys. Oh, go on – we don’t do it enough! If I had a huge wet green puggly, lazily clinging to the edge of my nostrils, swinging in the breeze like some salty pendulum, I’d really rather that someone pointed it out.
Wouldn’t you?
They didn't need to pour the brown stuff on the golf ball....they had me at "air whipped".
ReplyDelete