Ideas of Beauty

Here is one of the latest crazes with pre-teen girls - the Liv Dolls.

The basic gist is that there are 4 dolls, each with it's own personality. The commercial shows 4 friends and their doll counterparts. Three of the friends are White, and one is Black.  The Black girl in the commercial has deep brown skin, brown eyes, and natural hair. But when she is transformed into a doll that is supposed to be a representation of her - all of a sudden she has light skin, straight hair, and green eyes (see above picture - she's the doll on the right). 

I first became aware of these dolls when I saw a commercial a few weeks ago on a Saturday morning. It caught my attention with this line: "Don't you want fabulous hair like the Liv dolls? They have the most beautiful hair!" The four dolls that were shown as the voiceover went on had long, straight hair. Subtle messages that this is the only type of hair that is beautiful are hurtful - what about all the girls who don't have long straight hair? Is their hair ugly in comparison?

I'm sensitive to this issue because my feelings about my messy, curly hair have changed back and forth over the years. When I was in middle- and high-school, I hated my curly hair. All of the popular girls had straight hair, so I ironed it til it was pin straight every day for 5 years.  I always received compliments on my hair if it was straight, but never if it was curly - and I got the message loud and clear about what was "pretty" and what wasn't. I started to embrace my curls in college, but would often straighten my hair as my boyfriend at the time told me I was prettier that way (awful!). And over the past two years, I've moved to the other extreme: I will only wear my hair curly, in protest of the standard of beauty that was always pushed on me. But is this any better? I now feel like I can't straighten my hair if I'm in the mood for a change, as if I wouldn't be authentic if I did. It reminds me of conversations I've heard in class about hair, especially in the Black community. I've heard lots of comments from women that they only seek out other Black women for friendship who keep their hair natural; part of me can understand why, but part of me feels that judging someone based on their chosen hairstyle is just reinforcing all of the negative messages women receive. If a Black woman chooses to relax her hair, does that make her less Black in their eyes? It's a conversation I've never had with anyone, but I think there's a lot of overlap between gender and racial ideals of beauty and the underlying beliefs/messages.

American standards of beauty are often culturally based and have far-reaching historical roots. Our hair texture, skin color, body shape, and body size are all held up to a standard that is portrayed over and over again. Although the commercial bothered me because I have curly hair, I am still able to easily find people to identify with and when I was young I had dolls that shared some of my characteristics.  What about individuals who are exposed day in and day out - on TV, the news, magazines, movies, clothing ads, commercials, the toy aisle - to people that look nothing like them, and then are told that those are the beautiful people? What does it mean to watch a commercial where maybe you do identify with one of the girls, only to see her morphed into a doll where all of the features you identified with were changed?

We are teaching children so much from such a young age, and the messages we are reinforcing are often hurtful, detrimental to one's self-esteem, and racist.