The New American-Beauty--The Media's State-of-Mind

I reprint this article here–not because [insert-name-of-my-latest-'conquest'-here] is-or-is-not the type of beautiful described in the Esquire article below, but because it looks at the state-of-beauty 'without exact-regard to anyone's feelings'—i.e. it's not meant to make any actress, any model, or any singer feel any better or worse about herself; it's just a state-of-media-mind. But it makes one think ...

The New American Beauty: The Oven Stuffer

by Tom Junod | Dec 01 '04

Everybody now is beautiful or in the process of becoming so. Beauty, which previously provided an American alternative to aristocracy, is being made available to anyone who wants it enough. The model as paragon is passé. With the almost anachronistic exception of the Victoria's Secret posse, models are strictly specialty items, and most men would gladly pass on the cubist waifs haunting the pages of, say, W for a chance at any of the healthy streaked blonds lining up for the services of The Bachelor . In response to sheer demand, the American definition of beauty is changing, or about to change, for the first time in at least a generation.

To figure out what that definition is changing to, we have to remember what it's changing from . "Natural beauty" was the ideal promoted in the '60s, and, amazingly, it was made to apply over the years to everybody from Katharine Ross to Christy Turlington. Madonna struck the first blow against it by putting beauty at the service not only of image but also of her will; the obesity epidemic and the acceptance of porn as an aesthetic finished it off. When beauty has become an elastic enough term to include the likes of Jenna Jameson and Britney Spears, it's safe to say that the whole concept has changed—but how?

Flesh goes off, flesh goes on—that's always been the measure of American cultural progress, and we have now entered an epoch of accretion. The new American beauty is busty rather than leggy. She is squat rather than tall. There is a kind of hardened voluptuousness to her. Her face is not angular; it is broad, almost swollen looking, for the American face, in general, has expanded along a horizontal axis. Her hair is streaked blond, and her teeth are unapologetically white. There is no better example of the new American beauty than the former child star Lindsay Lohan. It's not that Lohan, small of stature and yet almost ridiculously 'zaftig' (full-bosomed), is not a beauty; it's that she has made nature's role in the advancement of beauty moot.

And so now, when it comes time to name the new American beauties, we have to celebrate what makes them such a break from the past. The '60s and their idea of beauty gave us "chicks"; the new century gives us Oven Stuffers, after the eight-pound pullets straining against their shrink wrap in the meat section of your local supermarket. Nobody can look at one of those birds and think they look in any way "natural." They are so beyond the course of nature that their appeal becomes nearly patriotic; they are the SUVs of poultry. They have become the presiding metaphor for the new generation of American beauties, henceforth called the Oven Stuffer generation.

Britney Spears is an Oven Stuffer—the ur–Oven Stuffer. So is Christina. Beyoncé is an Oven Stuffer with talent. Jenna Bush is an Oven Stuffer. So is Julia Stiles. So is Erika Christensen. So is Jennie Finch, the pitcher for the U. S. women's softball team, which we were all advised to lust after during the Summer Olympics. Even the Olsen twins, who look as if they could use a few Oven Stuffers in their diet, have horizontally oriented Oven Stuffer faces. The last supermodel, Gisele Bündchen, is not an Oven Stuffer, but that's because she's Brazilian. She's tall and tan and young and lovely. We Americans are not that anymore. The American Century was also the century of American beauty—the century in which the American ideal of beauty touched every corner of the globe. We will probably not be able to sustain that kind of domination as we turn to the defense of our empire. But we need beauty more than ever. Our appetite for beauty is stronger than ever. We turn to the Oven Stuffers, because as a nation we never have been one to go hungry.

Copyright © 1997-2005 by the Hearst Corporation.

At first I was unaware of any shift in beauty's 'definition' (I suppose that's what comes with a childhood where 'Dolly Parton' is that 'definition'---'Mama, what is Beauty?' "Well, ya know Dolly Parton?"), but then I reviewed the article and saw at the beginning, "most men would gladly pass on the cubist waifs haunting the pages of, say, W for a chance at any of the healthy streaked blonds lining up for the services of The Bachelor ."

I suppose that now (again speaking without exact-regard to anyone's feelings), "beauty" is not held-onto by a model's careful dieting, strenuous exercising, and tedious cleaning ... not as much as her presence in the media, reassuring audiences that she still has the 'beauty.'

Granted, she'd probably never become "beautiful" without satisfying a few of the then-current standards; but once she does that, the 'beauty' is her agency's tool to reinforce or reject. BATMAN BEGINS's moral comes to mind: "It's not 'who you are inside,' but 'what you do'."

I'm not saying that "beauty" has no concrete definition: remember, "The new American beauty is busty rather than leggy. She is squat rather than tall. There is a kind of hardened voluptuousness to her. Her face is not angular; it is broad, almost swollen looking, for the American face, in general, has expanded along a horizontal axis. Her hair is streaked blond, and her teeth are unapologetically white." In short, the American-public wants a woman who gets her fill and who has plenty to give ... I know that my summary leaves out many factors of the beauty (the blondness, the white-toothed-ness), but 'gets her fill and has plenty to give' will probably be a lasting quality of "beauty" long after we evolve beyond 'hair' and 'teeth.'.