In its March 2011 issue, Allure Magazine polled 2,000 people “to find out what is beautiful now.”
News flash: The “all-American look” is reportedly dead (69 percent of all respondents believe there is no longer any such thing). To top that off, “the regal, elegantly varnished blonde has been effectively dethroned.”
Should African-American women declare some sort of a holiday, breath a sigh of relief, or at least dare to fantasize about what it would feel like to be held up as the epitome of feminine attractiveness in the American imagination? After all, other findings hinting at the emergence of a nationwide black-is-beautiful consensus include:
74 percent of all respondents said they wanted [their lips] to be fuller.
Of those respondents who said they wished to change their skin color, 70 percent reported that they wanted it to be darker. Among women, the desire to deepen their skin tone is especially pronounced.
85 percent believe that increased diversity in this country has changed what people consider beautiful.
45 percent of black and Hispanic men think a prominent butt is among a woman’s most attractive features (28 percent of white males agree with that); and
74% believe that a curvier body type is more appealing now than it has been over the past ten years.
Not so fast, though.
While that particular set of stats might make you think Christy Brinkley, Allure’s representative of the beauty ideal from twenty years ago, would have been replaced by Michelle Obama (ok, maybe Beyonce), the 2011 title-holder is actually Angelina Jolie. And, according to the survey, the look the public considers most beautiful is “mixed race” (and we have a feeling respondents weren’t picturing the majority of African-Americans who technically fit that description when they responded).
As Latoya Jones of Racialicious points out, Allure’s very next photo shoot “reveals how this type of acceptance plays out, featuring a variety of models from various races and ethnicities…but who all have the same essential look. . .Skin tones range from pale to mid brown, lips are uniformly full, features are uniformly keen, bodies are still uniformly thin, and hair is from straight to loosely curled. In this way, we acknowledge the world has changed – but swap an old, exclusive beauty standard for a new one.” (Read Racialicious’ full analysis here).
In other words, the ideal has shifted from white to “white with a twist.”
Still, there are also some indisputably uplifting findings for women who’ve never had to shop for a fake tan or Booty Pop panties: When shown photos of various races and ethnicities, African-American men considered the black female model the most beautiful. (The fact that that is noteworthy at all is a whole different conversation.) Black women are less concerned than women of other races about aging. And, most importantly, “[T]he highest rates of aesthetic self-confidence and pleasure in one’s own body exist among African-American women. . .”
So, maybe there’s something to smile about after all. At the end of the day, nurturing self-acceptance sounds like a smarter strategy for winning the beauty game than chasing [slightly] “shifting beauty standards” that are as unpredictable as they are unfair.
Read more at Allure and Racialicious.
In other news: Elizabeth Taylor, Dead at 79
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