I do apologise. This was never supposed to be a serious fanzine, but this is something that caught me recently and I wanted to write about it. Normal service will be resumed shortly, promise.
The other day, I was walking down the street from Covent Garden tube station to Coffee, Cake & Kink and I happened to notice the M.A.C shop. Now, I like M.A.C, and they do very good make-up, so I peered through the window. The first thing I noticed were the adverts for their new spring range.
It's called 'Barbie Loves M.A.C', and the poster shows two painted, plastic women with more airbrush than flesh. They stand, blank and expressionless, their perfectly pink lips slightly parted. I actually had to do a double-take to confirm that they were in fact women and not Barbie dolls themselves.
According to the video on the website, Barbie "represents such diverse beauty-[that] it doesn't matter about ethnicity [or], cultural background, she is the face of beauty". It seems to me that this is, in fact, utter bollocks. As far as I'm aware, Barbie dolls come from one mould in three or four different colours of plastic. The 'black' Barbie doesn't look like an African woman, she looks like a Western woman with dark skin. What sort of message is this sending out? 'It's okay to be black, just so long as you don't look like you are'? Is that all 'beauty' is? Who decides this? Who has the right to prescribe what is and isn't seen as beautiful?
It seems that, as a society, we are attempting to force beauty into a pink plastic mould. 'If you don't look like this,' the media screams, 'you're not beautiful. Sorry, love.' 'This' being about 5'10” and nine stone maximum, with legs up to your armpits and a 28E chest.
But everyone knows all this. This is a rant that's been written a hundred times and debated till the cows come home-and then, when the cows come home, we look up and say 'Bugger off, you stupid cows! We're debating!' I ranted all this out in my head, turned the corner and walked into Coffee, Cake & Kink to see a friend.
I'd never been there before, and I was impressed. Artistic portraits of naked reclining women adorn the walls. Tall, slim, white, large-breasted, naked reclining women. And yet my feeling here is not one of righteous anger and latent feminism, but one of comfort and acceptance.
So is it really just a simple case of 'us' and 'them'? Is the fact that I find the ad campaign offensive and alienating and the portraits attractive and inviting purely a matter of culture? I'm still having trouble reaching any conclusions about this, and it's beginning to bother me. Any thoughts are much appreciated!
(The coffee and cake in CC&K is wonderful too, by the way. You should go.)