Beauty in Mexico

There has been much discussion of beauty on this blog so I thought the Mexican viewpoint might be interesting:

At September’s Nuestra Belleza beauty pageant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, 20 young women competed for the right to represent their country in the Miss Universe contest. Yet in a pageant whose name means “our beauty,” the 20 finalists could all have easily passed for French or Italian. And while the pageant drew its participants from many corners of the country – 18 states fielded contestants in the final round – the heavily indigenous southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas were not represented.

Also in September, an issue of the celebrity magazine TV y Novelas published an article ranking the 10 most beautiful faces among Mexico’s female celebrities. Many of those who made the top 10 might be confused for Scandinavians. The woman on the list with the darkest features was Hollywood actress Salma Hayak, who was praised for “possessing one of the most classic Mexican faces at the international level.” Yet only one other woman with a “classic Mexican face” – soap opera star Yadhira Carrillo – made the Top 10.

At the end of the article, a Mexican plastic surgeon who had formulated the ranking system explained his standards for measuring facial beauty. He offered precise mathematical measurements for the maximum length and width of a beautiful nose, and he opined that in women, an oval face is much more attractive than a round one. The message, if not intentional, was clear: Even in mestizo Mexico, facial features more common to people of European descent are beautiful, while features that are more typical of people of indigenous ancestry are not.

On October 12, Mexicans celebrate Dia de la Raza, or “Day of the Race,” to recognize the birth of the mestizo, or “mixed,” race that was created after Colombus arrived in the New World and the Spanish began to mix with the indigenous peoples. And current population estimates show that Mexico truly is a mestizo nation: About 60% of citizens claim mixed Euro-indigenous ancestry, with another 30% reporting an indigenous lineage and roughly 10% Caucasian. However, when it comes to popular images of physical attractiveness in Mexico, the message is painfully clear as to which part of the mestizo equation should be celebrated for its beauty.

This phenomenon is not a recent development. The dictator Porfírio Díaz, who ruled Mexico for more than thirty years from 1877 to 1911, was mestizo of Mixtec Indian-Spanish descent. But as political scientist Judith Alder Hellman has noted, as president, “Díaz had his official portrait painted again and again, each time to make him appear less Mexican and more European.” ....

Ana Laura Pérez, a Oaxacan who claims 100 percent Zapotec Indian ancestry, says that the ideal of beauty presented by Nuestra Belleza makes her “sad and indignant.”  “Those who participate are always women with foreign features, or at the least we can say that they’re certainly not of mixed blood,” she says. “There are plenty of women with mestizo features who qualify as beautiful, and that doesn’t mean that they have fair skin; thin, pointed noses and colored eyes. If the judges could say that the contestants were authentically mestizas, then they could authentically call them ‘Miss Mexico.’” ....

When the dominant imagery suggests that European features are beautiful and indigenous ones are not, it can have the insidious effect of convincing Mexicans – especially young Mexicans – that in order to be attractive, they must change their physical appearance. This can mean dying their hair blonde or wearing blue- or green-tinted contact lenses. Or as is increasingly common, it can mean the more drastic measure of a nose job.  “In Mexico, for the quinceaños (fifteenth birthday celebration), there used to be two possibilities: a big party, or a trip,” says Dr. Alejandro Duarte y Sánchez, a plastic surgeon who specializes in nasal reconstruction. “But right now, there’s a third option: ‘I want to change my nose.’ ”

A common sight on the streets of Mexico City is the conspicuous number of young males with small bandages on the bridges of their noses. According to Enrique Lucero, spokesman at the Mexico Board of Plastic Surgery, the bandaged noses likely show the result of the teen fad for plastic surgery. Or, he says, they may simply represent the desire behind the fad.  “Some of these may just be kids who want to make it look like they’ve had the surgery,” he says. “But also, some of the bandages have the effect of constricting the nose, so they wear it because it has the result of making the nose look thinner.” ....

Excerpt from here:  http://www.geocities.com/jonclark500/belleza.html

Posted by jonjayray on Tuesday, July 5, 2005 at 09:21 AM in No particular place to go
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