Love me

I work close to a Tourism Office that has an inner park where I sometimes go and sunbathe and relax at lunch time. But last week I saw there was a photo exhibit inside whose title drew my attention: “Love me”

So I went in and soon found it was a photographic reflection about our current beauty ideals and how people act or respond to them. The photographer Zed Nelson mainly shows to which extent some people go far beyond common sense in order to fit into them. Here we go with some of the pictures.

Belkis Estrella Maldonado is 31 and prisoner at Talavera Bruce maximum security women's prison (Rio, Brazil). She won the prison's annual beauty contest where the most beautiful prisoner is crowned "Miss Penitenciária". As a prize, she received a 14-inch colour TV, an electric fan and cosmetics.

Over-muscled man. Take a look at those upper legs and rear neck muscles...I thought this man was the black version of that TV-series main character ‘The incredible Hulk’, a man-monster that really scared me when I was small (click here if you wish to have a look at the green monster! ).

The following picture was just shocking. When I saw it I first thought it was the X-ray of a Chinese woman foot (following the tradition of binding little girls' feet in order to become small-feet adult women, a practice that results in painful, twist-shaped feet). But, to my greatest astonishment, the X-ray belongs to another "deformation": read the picture's legend, there's nothing else to add.   

"I've had three toes shortened - a portion of bone removed between the joints and fixed together with metal rods. I like to wear Jimmy Choo's, three-inch heels (7,5 cm) with a pointy toe."Foot X-ray. Toe reduction surgery. Kristina Widmer, 36 - New York, USA

Beauty Westernisation

Zed Nelson is quite critical about these beauty models. I agree particularly with his reflections about beauty globalization:  

"I travel a lot, and I had noticed that not only were places beginning to look the same, but people were beginning to look more similar too. Globalization hasn’t just given us Starbucks in Beijing and shopping malls in Africa, it is also creating an eerily homogenized look. I am fascinated and appalled at the commercially-driven export of ideas.
The modern Western beauty ideal has been sold to us, the modern Caucasian beauty ideal is now being packaged and exported globally as a crude universal brand.  Just as surgical operations to “Westernise” oriental eyes have become increasingly popular, so the beauty standard has become increasingly prescriptive. In Africa the use of skin-lightening and hair-straightening products is widespread. In South America women have operations that bring them eerily close to the Barbie doll ideal, and blonde-haired models appear on the cover of most magazines.

‘Westernising’ the human body has become a new form of globalization, and the homogeneization of appearance has made ‘Beauty’ into a crude universal brand.
As we align our sense of self-worth with self-image, the psychological and emotional consequences are tortuous".

Do you want to see more of Zed Nelson's work? Then visit his interesting webpage.

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