Beauty has been consumerist since at least forever. Historically, for women, it was their only currency, and it is still a form of currency for both men and women. Every woman remembers that even as a little girl, she was taught to be concerned with her personal aesthetics. When all you own is your body, if that, one is taught to make th…
Beauty has been consumerist since at least forever. Historically, for women, it was their only currency, and it is still a form of currency for both men and women. Every woman remembers that even as a little girl, she was taught to be concerned with her personal aesthetics. When all you own is your body, if that, one is taught to make the most of it.
It isn't just women. Men have their own aesthetic that serves as currency. It's no surprise that taller, better looking men tend to get higher salaries. Corporate competition is more of a beauty contest than anyone likes to admit. Look at all those cookie cutter CEOs.
Go back 20 or 30 thousand years, and you'll find shells and pebbles pierced to be strung on a necklace or other adornment. Some of those artifacts were found hundreds of miles from their source. Beauty was consumerist then, and it's consumerist now.
If you look at the arts, beauty is still important. Movies don't just hire actors based on their diction. Stock photo models aren't chosen off the street. Song lyrics, popular poetry, are chosen to please, even be catchy. Travel brochures emphasize the beauty offered at their destination. The consumer arts, the ones that most people will pay money for, are still about beauty.
The fine arts are different. There was an anti-beauty movement that started late in the 19th century in opposition to the rising consumer culture. It rejected the contemporary idea of beauty. The goal was épater le bourgeois, to shock the consumer class. That kind of art tends to be bought by the wealthy and wealthy institutions. It's a totally different animal. The whole point was to distinguish the wealthy from the merely prosperous.
Which is why The Picture of Dorian Grey is still so powerful, I think. Male beauty was as important to the Greeks and Romans as it was to Dorian Grey's image of himself - certainly more so than female beauty, on the whole. (Most women, whether goddesses or mortals, shown in Greek art are clothed, up to a certain point. But male figures were almost invariably nude.)
Beauty has been consumerist since at least forever. Historically, for women, it was their only currency, and it is still a form of currency for both men and women. Every woman remembers that even as a little girl, she was taught to be concerned with her personal aesthetics. When all you own is your body, if that, one is taught to make the most of it.
It isn't just women. Men have their own aesthetic that serves as currency. It's no surprise that taller, better looking men tend to get higher salaries. Corporate competition is more of a beauty contest than anyone likes to admit. Look at all those cookie cutter CEOs.
Go back 20 or 30 thousand years, and you'll find shells and pebbles pierced to be strung on a necklace or other adornment. Some of those artifacts were found hundreds of miles from their source. Beauty was consumerist then, and it's consumerist now.
If you look at the arts, beauty is still important. Movies don't just hire actors based on their diction. Stock photo models aren't chosen off the street. Song lyrics, popular poetry, are chosen to please, even be catchy. Travel brochures emphasize the beauty offered at their destination. The consumer arts, the ones that most people will pay money for, are still about beauty.
The fine arts are different. There was an anti-beauty movement that started late in the 19th century in opposition to the rising consumer culture. It rejected the contemporary idea of beauty. The goal was épater le bourgeois, to shock the consumer class. That kind of art tends to be bought by the wealthy and wealthy institutions. It's a totally different animal. The whole point was to distinguish the wealthy from the merely prosperous.
THIS
Which is why The Picture of Dorian Grey is still so powerful, I think. Male beauty was as important to the Greeks and Romans as it was to Dorian Grey's image of himself - certainly more so than female beauty, on the whole. (Most women, whether goddesses or mortals, shown in Greek art are clothed, up to a certain point. But male figures were almost invariably nude.)