Hollywood films have always used undeniably beautiful actors to appeal to viewers. This is a direct effect of the phenomenon of pretty privilege in society, where good-looking people are perceived as smarter, healthier and more successful. In a society obsessed with appearance, of course Hollywood executives are going to cast pretty people to sell more tickets.
Even with an affinity for actors who uphold the beauty standard, Hollywood also aims to sell its audiences a slice of life. This drive to make relatable content has resulted in films with actors who are incredibly beautiful but not so attractive that they supersede the standard of beauty an average person can achieve. Romantic comedies from the 1980s, like “When Harry Met Sally” and “Dirty Dancing,” all feature actors who are gorgeous without being perfect.
In recent years, however, the beauty standard has risen to a point where Hollywood films are no longer casting actors whose level of beauty is achievable by the average person. The recent romantic comedy “Anyone but You” is a good example of this. Lead actors Syndey Sweeney and Glen Powell present an idealized version of the current beauty standard, which uplifts a physique of thinness in women, muscular definition and tallness in men and flawless skin for both.
“Anyone but You” is not the only significant marker of the rise in beauty standards in popular media, though. Just look at the past 10 seasons of “The Bachelor.” Back when season one aired in 2002, the women were beautiful yet not so mythically gorgeous that their level of beauty was unattainable. Now, in season 28, the women are unrealistically stunning, with perfect hair and skin.
While unrealistic beauty standards have always dominated media spheres, the utterly unattainable standard of today can be viewed as a function of capitalism and the overconsumption of media.
According to Our World in Data, the percentage of American adults who use social media increased from 5% in 2005 to 79% in 2019. Through social media, the everyday person is constantly exposed to messaging that promotes and perpetuates the beauty standard. With the rise of apps like Instagram and X over the last decade, physical similarities among the most popular and successful celebrities and influencers has led to the rise of a common appearance: the Instagram face.
Jia Tolentino, a staff writer for The New Yorker, discussed this in an article from 2019, where she examined the effects of this phenomenon on the individual person.
“It’s a young face, of course, with poreless skin and plump, high cheekbones,” she wrote in her characterization of the Instagram face. “It has catlike eyes and long, cartoonish lashes; it has a small, neat nose and full, lush lips. It looks at you coyly but blankly, as if its owner has taken half a Klonopin and is considering asking you for a private-jet ride to Coachella.”
Celebrities like Bella Hadid, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski and Alix Earle are just a few that come to mind when thinking about the Instagram face. The problem with the Instagram face as a signifier of conventional beauty in the U.S. is that it is entirely unattainable by the average person and has a proximity to whiteness. All the aforementioned celebrities are rich and have access to the best products and procedures. This phenomenon is inextricably intertwined with the long standing relationship between beauty and wealth in a society where botox, fillers and plastic surgery are becoming increasingly necessary to achieve conventional beauty standards. The expectation to spend money on aesthetic maintenance pushes the average social media user to internalize the celebrity appearance as what they need to prescribe to in order to be deemed beautiful and achieve success.
The practice of buying beauty is also a result of late capitalism. This stage of capitalism was first coined by Werner Sombart, a German historical economist, in his three-volume manuscript “Der moderne Kapitalismus,” where late capitalism is described as the state of economic and social distress associated with the aftermath of the first World War. The term evolved overtime, however, to describe an economic state marked by expansion and acceleration. Today, late capitalism is used as a term to describe the current stage of capitalism we inhabit, in which there is no limit to capitalist development. It is characterized by a globalized economy where everything is commodified and consumable.
According to Marxist political theorist Fredric Jameson in his book “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” late capitalism is an economic era in which culture itself is a commodity to be bought and sold. As a socially-constructed concept, beauty can be understood as a facet of culture that has been commodified through the overconsumption of media in our current society.
While it’s grown substantially more harmful in recent decades, the commodification of beauty is nothing new. The pressure to buy specific products or undergo physical procedures to achieve a certain appearance has existed for ages. With the proliferation of social media and its power over consumer behavior, however, the beauty standard has risen precipitously over the last couple of decades.
On social media, people tend to showcase only the best, most attractive parts of their lives. Celebrities and influencers alike present highly-curated images to audiences and say: this is realistic. And Hollywood is no different. Although Hollywood films aim to offer some semblance of relatability, beautiful actors like Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell are who get cast in romantic comedies. This comment is in no way meant to discredit the acting abilities of either person, but I don’t want to watch another film that depicts an unbelievably gorgeous person falling in love. All it does is make the average person feel like they have to be physically perfect to find success in romance.
The development of an unattainable beauty standard can also lead to low self-esteem, anxiety and depression. The perpetuation of this unachievable beauty standard in media is incredibly harmful and leaves consumers with the never-ending desire to buy into the ideal version of oneself through purchasing makeup products or undergoing cosmetic procedures like botox and surgery.
While it’s difficult not to fall into the trap of idealized beauty through social media consumption, it’s important to remember that beauty is a social construct. The categorization of physical traits into spheres of conventional beauty and unconventional beauty is complete nonsense. In an effort to dismantle the beauty standard, broaden your idea of beauty to encompass different shapes, sizes and body types. Stop indulging in popular media that elevates one particular appearance and, most importantly, work to recognize the beauty in yourself. You don’t need to meet socially-imposed beauty standards to feel good. You’re beautiful no matter how you look.
Erin Stafford (she/her) is a senior studying journalism with a minor in English.
