It seemed as though just last year we were in the era of “The Big Booty.” Celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and Iggy Azeala were the focus of young women around the world. Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” celebrated the uniqueness of having curves in a society where the thigh gap fascination was still a heavy presence. But with this trend girls were trying to eat more carbs or doing leg lifts until they couldn’t walk anymore, all aiming towards the same goal. According to an article in Vogue it wasn’t until recently, in the era of the music video girl and social media, that a curvaceous body type became popular saying. “a large butt was not something one aspired to, rather something one tried to tame in countless exercise classes.”
I think Vogue may be slightly late on the booty train whereas it is quite common in other countries. The United States seems to be on the lagging end of appreciating the beauty of a full figure. So where did this seemingly newfound obsession come from? Some might credit the surge of popular music or social media outlets like Instagram where celebs like Kim Kardashian and J.Lo can pose showcasing their assets. Some might even credit the self-proclaimed “twerk queen” Miley Cyrus or Katy Perry to this new trend.
Next to big butts, the most recent obsession seems to be Kylie Jenner’s perfect pout. Kylie’s Instagram photos debuting her new lips (which she states are real) has been all the rage lately. YouTube is booming with make-up gurus recreating the look by overdrawing their natural lip shape with pencil and nude lip liners.
To go even farther, girls have been using the lids of bottles as a new method to enhance their lips and get that plump look that everyone seems to be aspiring for. This method involves sucking your lips into the lip of a bottle for an extended amount of time, but can result in extreme pain and is definitely a non-healthy way of achieving the desired look of the moment.
But why wait until now to showcase a part of the body that may not need liner or lip pencil to accentuate? Hundreds of thousands of people tune in every Thursday to watch Scandal, but how many times do we see praise for Kerry Washington’s naturally full pout? Of course there shouldn’t be competition as to who has the most beautiful lips with or without makeup or whose butt is naturally the perkiest, but here’s an issue: why is it that a feature that comes naturally to so many women is only accepted in the public eye when made popular some and not others?
Sara or Saartije Baartman was an African woman born in 1789 in what is now known as South Africa. Sara was a part of the Khoikhoi people and grew up on a farm. Later in her life, during the colonial period, Dutch sailors came to South Africa looking to expand. The Khoikhoi was one of their targets. Sara was met by and Englishman and had allegedly been given the opportunity to make money for her family and return back to her native land. With an agreement from Sara, she would travel to Europe and become a servant and a form of entertainment for the Europeans there, earning wages and helping her family financially. Sara traveled to London and became a sort of sideshow circus act for curious European men and women who had never seen a woman with a deep skin tone or a curvaceous body type as her. Many paid to see Sara on display and as the object of scientific interest she was gawked at for beautiful features, that unbeknownst to others, came naturally to her. These bodily characteristics were common for women in Sara’s home community, but because of the unfamiliarity in Europe she was considered a freak.
Yes it’s the year 2015, not the 16th century, but this preoccupation with the slim but curvy body type is not something totally new and foreign. What began as a product of scientific and sexual probing for women like Sara Baartman has seemingly transformed today’s generation into the era of “Breaking the Internet,” but there’s a difference. No one is gawking in awe, disgust and prodding at Kim K. She isn’t seen as some sort of oddity or less than human. What we are seeing is an obvious change in attitude, but there are other changes too. The face of the person whose butt is on display.
It’s challenging to not become obsessed with the current trends, but why does one person have to be the spearhead of a beauty movement. When we obsess over something that so many women naturally have by focusing on one person who creates the look to appease to the masses then we lose the beauty of it in itself. We have to include more women in the conversation. The point is that the female body in the media is a concept that is constantly being discussed, but when we limit the “what’s hot right now” beauty trend to an actual feature that is created by genetic makeup, we loose a great deal of young women to encourage and uplift. It’s unfair to idolize young women with a thinner frame and skinny and then turn around and say “no, not anymore” because slim thick is what’s popular right now because all women are made differently.
It’s fine if you want to enhance your lips by adding a bit of liner, knock out a few extra squats in the gym if you feel like it, but don’t do it just because it’s popular now. These are characteristics that so many women around the globe wake up with every day; it isn’t an act to be paraded about but a diversity that should be celebrated.