{"id":4269,"date":"2013-12-07T01:55:51","date_gmt":"2013-12-07T05:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arts.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=4269"},"modified":"2013-12-07T02:55:26","modified_gmt":"2013-12-07T06:55:26","slug":"one-direction-beauty-and-feminism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2013\/12\/07\/one-direction-beauty-and-feminism\/","title":{"rendered":"One Direction, Beauty, and Feminism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Confession: I like One Direction more than any adult is probably willing to admit. Even when I was a camp counselor the summer that they hit it big and crazed tweenagers were screaming the chansons into my ears, I held strong in my adoration of the British boy band.<\/p>\n

There is one song of theirs, however, which has always irked me whenever it comes on the radio (or out of the mouth of a love-struck adolescent). It is, the ever-popular: “What Makes You Beautiful.”<\/a><\/p>\n

In my opinion, the especially problematic lyrics are as follows:<\/p>\n

1. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need make-up to cover up, being the way that you are is enough.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

2. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re beautiful. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what makes you beautiful.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

With regards to this first line I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve listed, it reminds me of a very passive aggressive roommate I had my freshman year of college. Almost every morning, I would wake up early to apply make-up and one time, she told me: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wear make-up, because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not trying to impress anyone.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d My response: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Neither am I. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just trying to blend in.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d No pun intended, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true. In order to look the way I am expected to as a woman, I need to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cover up\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the cystic acne that I have struggled with since I was eleven.<\/p>\n

I do not have the appearance of what society deems as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153natural beauty\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the morning. My hair looks like I was struck by lightning during the night and my skin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153imperfections\u00e2\u20ac\u009d do not consist of a few freckles. In fact, the year I was on hard-core medication that shut down all oil production in my skin (clearing my complexion, yet also giving me massive headaches and perpetually dry lips), the friends and family members I reconnected with after having not seen them since before swallowing that first intense pill would almost always say something along the lines of: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh my God! Your face looks so nice!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And I know they were trying to be kind, but I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help thinking — It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great to know that you believe I looked hideous before.<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0Now that the drugs didn’t completely work,\u00c2\u00a0I wear make-up, but not because I am vain or want to get laid. I wear it because I want to look “normal”. I wear it because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want people averting their eyes when speaking with me or worse — staring pitifully into mine.<\/p>\n

The issue that I find with the second lyric I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve posted is similar, more general, and a well-discussed concern birthed from the feminist movement — why is a woman measured by her beauty in the first place? And why, in this instance, do a woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s insecurities make her beautiful? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost like my favorite five-member British boy band is trying to keep my confidence level fairly low if it’s saying that the type of beauty I should be striving for is derived from that special something with which femininity has always been associated: hyper-humility. Why am I not allowed to apply my foundation and lipstick, then look in the mirror and say: “damn, I look good today,” without being pegged as a fake, vain, bitch?<\/p>\n

Why is it unacceptable for women to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153know [they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re] beautiful\u00e2\u20ac\u009d without being told so?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Confession: I like One Direction more than any adult is probably willing to admit. Even when I was a camp counselor the summer that they hit it big and crazed tweenagers were screaming the chansons into my ears, I held strong in my adoration of the British boy band. There is one song of theirs, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4269"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4286,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269\/revisions\/4286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}