The Construction of Beauty: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Women's Magazine Advertising

Abstract

As a media genre, advertising offers a unique opportunity to study how the beauty ideal is constructed across cultures. This research analyzes the content of advertisements from women's fashion and beauty magazines in Singapore, Taiwan, and the U.S. to compare how beauty is encoded and found a noticeable difference between the portrayals of women from the U.S. and from the two East Asian societies in terms of sexual portrayal. In addition, Asian ads contained a large proportion of cosmetics and facial beauty products whereas the U.S. ads were dominated by clothing. These findings suggest that beauty in the U.S. may be constructed more in terms of "the body," whereas in Singapore and Taiwan the defining factor is more related to a pretty face. The article also discusses how feminist critiques of the sexual objectification of women in advertising may need to be considered within their historical, Western context of origin.Each culture has a set of general beliefs about what constitutes femininity and beauty. According to Wood (1999), to be feminine in the United States is to be attractive, deferential, unaggressive, emotional, nurturing, and concerned with people and relationships. According to Hofstede (1997), in Confucian cultures, femininity is associated with virtue and modesty. The script for femininity is written into a culture and is transmitted over time through family, peers, teachers, and the media.Likewise, beauty is a construct that varies from culture to culture and changes over time. A buxom Marilyn Monroe was the beauty ideal in the United States in the 1950s, soon to be replaced by the emaciated Twiggy of the 1960s. Whereas porcelain skin is valued in China, scarification of the skin is a beauty process in parts of Africa. Thus, the particular set of physical characteristics perceived as The Construction of Beauty 57 beautiful and desirable can vary across cultures and time periods. Advertisements offer us a unique opportunity to study the construction of beauty in a culture because advertisers are notorious for promoting a "beauty ideal" (Greer, 1999) or, as Cortese (1999) pointed out, presenting "the exemplary female prototype." Because the majority of research on images of women in advertising over the past 30 years has been conducted in the U.S. and Europe (literature may reflect assumptions about women that are specific to Western cultures. Certain themes have dominated this literature, such as the stereotyping of women as passive and less powerful players in society, the portrayal of women as sexual objects in ads, and the cumulative effect of magazine advertising on women's self-esteem.The purpose of this research is to compare the portrayals of beauty in women's fashion and beauty magazine advertisements from Asia and the U.S. to help understand how beauty is constructed across cultures.

Sociocultural Predictors of Physical Appearance Concerns among Adolescent Girls and Young Women from China

“…According to Frith et al (2005) femininity has been tied historically to virtue and modesty in Confucian cultures such as China. Hence, the face is often emphasized over showing off overtly sexual body features in idealized portrayals of female attractiveness.…”

Compatibility of basic social perceptions determines perceived attractiveness

“…If correct, evaluative social judgments such as attractiveness should vary as a function of the indices of fit with the role compelled by society. Moreover, although the specific indicators will undoubtedly vary across cultures (20,22,23), similar processes should govern evaluative judgments of both men and women. One straightforward measure of an individual's fit with their gender role is their degree of femininity or masculinity or gender typicality.…”

College Men’s Third-Person Perceptions about Idealized Body Image and Consequent Behavior

“…Therefore, they perceived that the media effects of Chinese models were no different from the effects of Caucasian models. In addition, global marketing has made most models White in worldwide advertising (Frith et al 2005). Especially in a country like Singapore where the media is quite westernized, the exotic White media models do not appear unusual.…”

“…Due to global marketing, models presented in advertisements and other types of media around the world tend to be White (Frith et al 2005). Media in Singapore are no exception.…”

“…Media in Singapore are no exception. Research shows that primarily Caucasians portray ideal body images in the media in Singapore (Frith et al 2005;Khoo and Karan 2007). However, in reality, Caucasian people represent less than 1% of the population in Singapore and people of Chinese descent constitute the majority ethnic group (Singapore Census Report 2001).…”