Monday, November 15, 2010

Of Women & Clowns



Photoshop and plastic surgery aren't the only means by which beauty has been standardized. As the rather fadish stencil products featured above and below suggest, low-tech practices of facial homogenization have long worked in concert with more expensive and prominent techniques to help manufacture and maintain a particular visual grammar of middle-class feminine beauty. That some of these practices resemble those used by professional clowns should be of no surprise to anyone vaguely familiar with the history of patriarchy (or clowns).


5 comments:

Karen/Small Earth Vintage said...

I bet that stenciled-on lipstick looked great on EVERYBODY.

It's weird how lady #2 tweezed yet ended up with both darker, more dense brows. Huh.

Annie, The Friendly Fox said...

Yikes, that's a creepy ad! No better way to ensure you look ladylike and put together than looking like a mime in the process!

Mother Midnight Vintage said...

i wish there was a 'hair stencil'.
THAT would make my life easier.

Wildfell Hall Vintage said...

I'd like a whole face stencil and I'd like to custom make the stencil...

Huzzah! Vintage said...

@Vintage Seen

make my stencil that of a bearded man; they seem to demand a good amount of respect.