Interviews are the toast of the week and a staple meal to get me through a day.
A documentary a week helps to keep my mind working and an accompanying cup of tea to warm me up, now that the weather has turned bitter.
I think because we all collectively dared Melbourne (in jest) to get colder because we were sick of  sweating profusely at 10pm, she unhinged her jaw and decided that Winter was now here.
We beat Game of Thrones to the punch.

I cannot wait for Game of Thrones.

Where was I… Reflections, yes.
I’ve been watching a few interviews on Vice and i-D; both brands that are big on whitewashing publications.

I watched the docco below with Grace Neutral, interviewing different people in Korea on beauty ideals.
Grace goes to Seoul and meets with underground tattooists and a couple younger kids who are influenced by the growing K-Pop beauty scene.

I’ve watched this interview a few times and I believe that Grace is guilty of orientalism, although she means well, Grace is covered in tattoos; a stark contrast to the girls she’s interviewing.

Her eyes have been dyed purple, she has used scarification, body modification; skin grafts, had her tongue sliced in half, stretcher earrings all over her body – and while this is her choice it does mean that talking to a girl in Korea, with no tattoos, who also represents a Westernised beauty ideal, is a concept that she can’t comprehend.

I am with her to the point of disagreeing with young girls indulging in plastic surgery because they’ve been affected by unrealistic beauty ideals but around the 6:00 minute mark, the girl tells us that Korean girls tend to get plastic surgery just after they graduate from high school.
Around about the 18 y/o mark.
With a girl’s body fully formed at the age of 26, it’s a premature decision.
Skipping ahead a little, Grace then mentions that she feels uncomfortable being unclothed in the Korean bathhouse (where she’s interviewing the girl) because it feels like she is 14 again, showing her mother her first tattoo.

So, Grace was 4 whole years younger than a girl in Korea modifying her body.
Grace was no doubt responding to something societal by getting those tattoos, as we all inevitably do as we try to navigate our way through adolescence (and life), so she’s not doing something different.
She was rebelling against what was thought of as beautiful, or maybe she just had a group of friends who had tattoos.

I do wonder why it’s okay for her to have got a tattoo (without her mother’s consent, mind you) and the Korean girl is made to look like an air-headed princess for a single procedure.

I watched another of her docco’s on Brazilian beauty and how feminine ideals are being challenged more these days.
The girls she interviewed were a lot like her.
They had shaved their hair off, they were covered in tattoos and piercings and boasted a masculine appearance.
They looked a little punk and still fed an ideal. It just wasn’t typically westernised.

The bias wasn’t verbalised but it was definitely palpable.


 

 

 

 

I thought that these were interesting examples of an interviewee meaning well by exploring important issues but unknowingly judging a lifestyle just because it varied from theirs, or maybe it wasn’t what she expected.

I feel it’s also important to note that I find it incredible that women are fighting against what is seen as typically beautiful but I also think that beauty is personal, regardless of who you have been influenced by.
We are all influenced by something or someone, and so on and so forth.
It is the medical industries and their lax standards that allow for these premature surgeries on people whose bodies are not fully formed.
It is their lust for money that overrules morality.

Media that is released and disseminated within the populous, infects the minds of the youth who aren’t taught to think for themselves.
Instead, we’re told to look up and idolise those on billboard charts and advertising campaigns.
Reminds me of The perverts Guide to Ideology

We have to search for alternate media and information to furnish our minds with enough ammunition to be able to counter any and all bias’ we encounter.
It’s exhausting but it’s never dull.

I can’t wait ’til all this fighting pays off and my worth is no longer judged by my looks, rather my intelligence and sense of self.

Wanted to see where this thought led me – sorry if I rambled.