Welp, the verdict is in: Gwyneth Paltrow is officially the WORLDS MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN!
Anyone else completely unimpressed and not at all shocked by this news, show of hands?
When it comes to wide cultural rankings of beauty (world, national etc) it’s almost imperative that a white woman (preferably with keen, traditionally Euro-centric features) is deemed representational of these idealistic standards. This is the safe choice. It’s the assumption (fueled by problematic privileged thinking) that the beauty of women like Gwyneth Paltrow is somehow unanimous, almost common knowledge. The notion of, “who in the ENTIRE WORLD could argue with the fact that she’s so beautiful?!”
Oh, i dont know, maybe: black, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous women, lesbian and transgender women, non-American women, any group of women that does not co-sign in the presumption that western, white, blonde hair, blue eyed, skinny, hetereonormative femininity is beautiful.
What’s worse is that there isn’t even a democracy in the matter. It’s not like Paltrow ran for Most Beautiful Woman and was elected so by some individual popular vote so that at least this title would be a statement of fact. But her beauty was just decided for us. (and by who? some editors at People?) from an extremely subjective standpoint.
And while People is not the only magazine that participates in this bullshit, they are apart of the larger problem that forces marginalized ideas of beauty onto us without our permission. We are told not asked, who is beautiful. We have images “bestowed” upon us, without ever taking into account our multicultural differences or preferences (like the fact that many southern blacks who actually think women look better with curves, unlike the waif-like Paltrow). While white women have the option of either negotiating or rejecting these Westernized beauty standards, women of color do not. Biology dictates that even if we did concede with these standards we would never, physically, be able to fit them. And so we internalize these images, and hope to be acknowledged as at least “pretty for a black/Latino/Asian girl”—-like an anomaly of beauty. The essentialism of this beauty, and our physical incapability to achieve it then marks us as “ugly” by default.
The part that pisses me off the most is the implicit subtext that implies that beauty is not actually subjective and relative to your racial, gender, sexual, and geographical perspective but that there is an objective specification, an actual prototype of attractiveness and Gwyneth Paltrow is it. That YOUR ideas about what is and isn’t hot aren’t valid, that they dont represent “universal” beauty. That your skin and face and hair and body aren’t needed in this space, because “we’ve” already excluded you from it.
The underrepresention of women of color in mainstream media beauty (and the discourse around it) is nothing new. But the audacity with which these beauty standards are held up as the ideal (and trump the ones that WE have defined) will no longer be tolerated.
So fuck you People. I don’t think Gwyneth Paltrow is the most beautiful woman in the world. Or the country. Or even in Hollywood. And I don’t have to because I don’t have to comply in the desirability of women who look nothing like me. Because I decide what the fuck that means, not you.
Seat. Have one. Now.
[PS: please do not begin your comments by saying that “Beyonce was put on the cover last year.” I realized this beforehand and that fact has exactly zero effect on everything I’ve said above. Beyonce has huge commercial success that crosses multi racial/cultural lines which makes her a “safe” token minority (along with Halle Berry) that mainstream media can point to to prove they’ve met their diversity quota. If Beyonce made the cover ten years in a row I’d STILL critique it (perhaps even more harshly) because her brand of beauty (light skinned, straight blonde hair, westernized heteronormative) is not only forced upon me within the black community, but represents the bare minimum level of “exoticism” the mainstream media is willing to tolerate. Not only that, but conveniently pointing out a few exceptional minorities that have “made it” does not change the current dominant standard of beauty that Gwyneth Paltrow still upholds, which has it’s worst effect on women of color. (Black and brown women around the world aren’t exactly having cosmetic surgery to look more “ethnic” are they? ) so now that you’ve gotten that out of your system lets have a real discussion, shall we? ]
the negress 