WP1: Why Don’t I Look Like Her?
Why don’t I look like her? East Asian women and girls constantly ask themselves this question. They see what society portrays as beautiful through the media and compare the way they look to others. The East Asian media focuses on the beauty standard that centers on a youthful and feminine appearance, which includes light skin, double eyelids, small face, slim body, and high nose bridge. These are all heavily pressured by society, which is evident in the media. They are known to be toxic and pushed for throughout girlhood and womanhood.
Recently, Korean media has grown popular around the world. Kpop is taking over the entertainment industry. One thing all these idols share is their renowned beauty. They are constantly being praised for it or if they don’t fit these standards, it becomes evident from hate. People focus on their appearance and disregard them compared to other members due to the way they look. This hate can spread to their fans or viewers. Women and girls that see these comments about an idol’s features who are similar to theirs, make them feel unworthy. They ask themselves “Am I Ugly? Is that what people think about me?” It adds to this pressure that comes from wanting to be accepted by society and seen as beautiful. The truth is many of these idols have done plastic surgery, so much of their beauty is realistically unachievable and not natural. This relates to people turning to plastic surgery to look like their idols and fit the standards of beauty. It has become known that young teens are gifted double eyelid procedures or nose jobs after graduating middle school.
In the video at 9:48, it states “Congratulations. Your musical talent won you the privilege to get to the final rounds of auditions..but your visuals will not make you successful.” 200 Pounds Beauty was a popular movie that represents the scenarios women and girls are facing in society. The movie focuses on a woman who was perceived as unattractive and fat, which was the complete opposite of the beauty standard. She is cheated on by her own husband and is disregarded by society because of her looks. She is a singer, but her own job uses only her voice and hides her face from the world. She turns toward plastic surgery and extreme exercise to help her. Then after her entire appearance changes, society treats her much better. She is even able to become a singer without hiding behind the scenes. Watching this as a young child, I was genuinely shocked about how cruel people acted towards the main character because of the way she looked. This movie criticizes the truth of society and how they treat women by the way they look. Even though the movie is trying to tell society of its cruel standards, in a way it pushes the idea forward as well. It causes women and girls to think that if they don’t look beautiful and skinny, they will be outcasted by society and live a horrible life. The beauty standards aren’t even natural. They are extreme and unrealistic, which causes people to do plastic surgery. It shows the agenda of how plastic surgery is the only way to be seen as beautiful. This is a common idea that is spread with the beauty standards. If you don’t fit the standards, your life will be difficult. This is true in many situations because people are treated better and more likely to be hired if they are more attractive. In reality, in many of these countries people are also heavily bullied for their looks if they are “ugly.”
Comparing plastic surgery to one’s natural features is unrealistic, similar to the comparison of anime characters to people. At 8:30 in the video above, there’s an anime known as Fairy Tale. Their portrayal of female characters is similar to how women are portrayed in most anime. The character known as Lucy represents everything that’s wrong. She has very extreme proportions and a figure that is unrealistic. She has a youthful face and is seen wearing a maid and cat costume in the anime. People who see or watch characters similar to her cause this confusion to grow of how women and girls should look like. Seeing her character and the way she’s perceived makes me feel uncomfortable. The way they focus on her body, while also making her look childish at the same time, is disturbing and unsettling. In Japanese media, there tends to be a focus on a youthful appearance. In anime, women and girls are portrayed with large round eyes. They share characteristics that are related to youth and cuteness. There is also a lot of sexualization involved with characters. They are drawn to have unrealistic body proportions. Society as a whole, especially men have grown used to what is portrayed in the media and think women and girls should act and look similar to the characters they see. With this toxicity, women and girls fall into this pressure to be similar to made up characters. They are being told to look similar to something that is not even real. These characters create this false understanding and perception of women and girls, making it impossible with these beauty standards.
Focusing and praising unrealistic ideals seems to be a common trend. Chinese media is especially seen through an app called Douyin, which is known as the Chinese TikTok. It’s an extremely popular app that almost everyone in China uses. Women and young girls constantly feel the need to add heavy filters on them due to the backlash and hate for not fitting the beauty standards. It is common for people to grow popular on the platform solely on their looks. There were streamers who have been revealed to use heavy filters on their face, which completely changed the way they look. Along with the beauty filters, there are also some for making your body thinner or your legs longer. Filters are not the only thing causing the growth of insecurity and wanting to fit the standards. There are challenges including huge trends that focus on the aesthetics of the beauty standard. One trend that involved women and girls comparing their waist width to the size of a paper. Another trend was being able to place many coins on your collar bones. A study done on these Douyin trends said that “the challenges provided a benchmark of ideal appearance, equating success with achievement of beauty standards” (Hu et al. 16). This reveals that the ones following the trend participated in it to show that they fit the ideal standards, and people that saw it could see their success in obtaining beauty. Women and girls were using the platform to brag and show that they fit the standards. While this occurred, the insecurity of others kept growing. Women and girls starved themselves and went on diets, just so they could fulfill a challenge. Even when I heard that people were doing these challenges, I thought about checking and seeing it for myself. There’s this toxicity of it when they just label it a challenge, even though people might know the outcomes for their own self, they still do it regardless. After doing it, it just hits them more and makes them feel unworthy.
The way the East Asian media pushes the beauty standard on society reflects the similar idea of banking that Paulo Freire wrote about, which explains that “projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology) of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry” (Freire 72). Freire’s idea of banking relates to the way the beauty standard is constantly being shown in the media. Due to the standard frequently being shown to the public, it makes them seem like they must follow it. Even though it’s unrealistic, women and young girls are still influenced to believe that they must look like those shown by the media in order to be considered beautiful. I realized that the more I watch or follow the media, the more I realize how truly harmful it is on people, including myself. The way the media pushes this idea on us, by engraving it in our minds that only “this” is considered beautiful. It has become the reason why the beauty standard has become so toxic and widespread due to the media and the idea of beauty it presents to everyone.
The East Asian beauty standard is unrealistic and impossible. Society expects women and young girls to be beautiful, in order for them to be accepted by most of the world. The media pushes the idea of beauty that can’t be realistically achieved. The constant toxicity continues to grow and affect women and young girls, including myself and people I know. It’s not only the media taking these beauty standards to another level, but the people. The idea we created in our heads continues to haunt us all and follow for generations to come. Will this ever stop?
Works Cited
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed Paulo Freire ; Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. Penguin Education, 1972.
Hu, Shuchen, et al. “Chinese tiktok (Douyin) challenges and body image concerns: A pilot study.” Journal of Eating Disorders, vol. 11, no. 1, 3 July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40337-023-00829-5.
“KPOP Is Destroying Your Brain.” YouTube, YouTube, 19 Jan. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=noS2robWQP0.
“Why Are Shounen Girls Trash? Lets Talk.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 May 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyLxZA6_424.
