Beauty and How It's Changed

Something I've come to realise over my teenage years and into my 20s is that my personal ideas of beauty have changed as I've progressed. Recently, as I was with my family at Christmas, my father pointed out an article in "The Sunday Times." The article wasn't earth-shaking but it did provoke thoughts within my mind. The article was about how society was lacking because of our standardisation of societal ideas of beauty.

Who can disagree when such a thought unwinds in your mind? Think of the screen stars of the '30s, '40s and '50s. Consider all the icons of the silver screen. There was Bette Davis, Mae West, Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh. Think of Marilyn Monroe. Such variety in their looks! Dark haired beauties, red-heads, blonde haired ladies - tall and elegant or curvy and busty women.

How Have Things Changed?

Consider the list of images posted alongside this text.

These women today wouldn't fit with the "Hollywood" look that seems so popular. It's a strange mix because women today are so fixated with a particular Barbie-esq, synthetic image but whilst admiring the iconic looks of these old Hollywood starlets. There is a fixation with the red carpet glamour that hearkens back to the "image" of these actresses.

How many women still list Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe as style icons?

Yet the rules for what is "attractive" and "beautiful" have become much stricter over the years. If they were actresers in the Hollywood community today, it's not beyond speculation that Marilyn Monroe's luscious size 14 frame would be the subject of subtle passive-aggressive comments on Monroe's eating habits or her cellulite. The distintive heavy-set eyebrows of Audrey Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Elizabeth Taylor would not exist, instead being waxed to fine sculpted shapes. It's even conceivable that the heavy-eyed beauty of Marlene Dietrich's femme fatale look would be "unconventional" in modern day Hollywood.