beauty concept

Looking at the ugly truth about beauty | Opinion | News.com.au

From Cleopatra to Aphrodite, the Mona Lisa to Marilyn Monroe, Angelina Jolie to Jennifer Hawkins, Audrey Hepburn to Sophia Loren, Barbie to Lara Croft, certain women have been upheld as yardsticks of beauty across a range of mediums. Depending on the era, they've been worshipped, painted, photographed, had odes composed to them, filled pages of gossip columns, been filmed, followed, flattered and sometimes emulated. Adored as secular deities or criticised as making life difficult for "ordinary" women who do not possess their classical good looks, we continue to celebrate and revere those who possess beauty and envy the gilded path they tread.

What's considered beautiful changes over time, from the lusciousness of Rubens' goddesses in his Judgment of Paris or the Graces in Bottecelli's Primavera (easy to gaze upon through Google), to Twiggy's petiteness or the statuesque proportions of Lucy Lawless's Xena, for all that we seem to favour one kind of woman, we embrace many - to some they're beautiful, to others not so much.

Just as images of Charlie's Angels were adorning bedroom walls, Barbara Streisand and her funny face reminded us that the brain (and how you use it) is actually the most beautiful of organs.

Likewise, when we're saturated with pictures and stories of Paris Hilton or the Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty shows that beauty, especially that which comes from within, not only endures but comes in all sorts of guises.

As a culture, we worship what beauty represents - possibilities, virtue, and a loveliness that is linked in some inexplicable way to the divine. Looking upon it gives us pleasure, even amidst the pain of jealousy and reminders of a lost or wasted youth. We yearn for beauty in our lives, in all sorts of ways and, if it's embodied in an individual, we consider them fortunate.

While the satisfaction that beauty unaccompanied by more lasting qualities brings might be ephemeral, it hasn't stopped marketers and some physicians persuading us that it's a physical attribute we can all, with the right amount of cash, products and/or debt, possess.

Contingent on money, the beauty industry creates another divide: the rich sip at the fountain of youth and beauty while those without the wherewithal age disgracefully. "Signs of visible ageing" will soon be more than a catchcry from an advertising campaign to seduce insecure folk into buying products, it will be a marker of class, financial status and thereby socially and ideologically divisive.

We've even turned the search for beauty into entertainment in the form of shows such as Extreme Makeover and Search for a Supermodel. Raised on diets of fairytales, we want beauty, when bestowed magically or unexpectedly, to be more than physically transformative; we want it to be life-changing. Hence we enjoy witnessing those who were once deemed "ugly" pass as attractive and get to mingle with the beautiful people for a while.

But as Derek Zoolander, the himbo model with a heart wondered, "I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good-looking". In our superficial culture where the pursuit of beauty is a personal life-goal for some, we sometimes lose sight of that.

Yet, as the poet Horace wrote, "nothing's beautiful from every point of view". The same goes for ugly - the two can even co-exist in the same form. But sometimes you have to look beyond the exterior to find out.

Dr Karen Brooks is an associate professor of media studies at Southern Cross University.