Child's Play
Rainbow
“As a materialist feminist who is critical of the beauty industry but also as someone who likes makeup, this photo series examines the corruption of childhood, particularly girlhood, through makeup serving capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal notions of gender, beauty, and worth.”
Tears
“Makeup is increasingly targeting younger and younger girls. I started watching beauty gurus on YouTube when I was 11, and there are literal toddlers on Instagram doing makeup. This objectification of girls and that pressure of ‘looking good’ when one is still a literal child is exacerbated by the beauty industry as well as society at large.”
Flowers
Personally, I enjoy wearing makeup because it makes me fit conventional standards of beauty better and thus makes people treat me better. Also, putting on makeup is fun and can be a method of artistic expression. However, I’ve observed that oftentimes, when people justify wearing makeup by saying that they use makeup as an “art”... I feel like they aren’t truly subverting the general standard techniques and understood methods and looks. Outside of high fashion, makeup is commercially still used to “emphasize your GOOD features :))”, thus implying that one is more attractive with makeup. Makeup, for women, is a tool to better assimilate into colonial and patriarchal standards of beauty. I wanted to play on that by literally using makeup the way artists use paint, in order to counteract the justification of “makeup as art” when commercially, makeup is commodified beauty standards in bottles, it is a billion dollar industry that exists on the insecurity of women, it is capitalism and patriarchy intersecting in its attempt to subvert the reality of such exploitation through claims of ‘artistic expression.’ Because if makeup truly is art that can be removed from colonial patriarchal notions of beauty, then this project could serve makeup’s ‘purpose’ outside of its commercialized use. Additionally, in my photos, I deliberately invoked a sense of childhood. Makeup is increasingly targeting younger and younger girls. I started watching beauty gurus on YouTube when I was 11, and there are literal toddlers on Instagram doing makeup. This objectification of girls and that pressure of ‘looking good’ when one is still a literal child is exacerbated by the beauty industry as well as society at large. Young girls are even socialized at play. What we did for fun as a children revolved around appearance and modifying that appearance-from “dress up” “makeovers” and dressing up dolls and playing with each other’s hair... our playtime was commodified, almost in parallel ways as to how ‘self care’ has been commodified. Capitalism perpetuates rituals for the self through upholding the patriarchy, and corrupting child development. Children should be smearing themselves in paint not makeup.
By Sunny Lu
17, St.Louis, Missouri