By Zyiah Tyler, Staff Reporter
One of the most popular reality television families that dominates the Bravo! TV network and its sister network E! is the Kardashian family. Their reality show, "Keeping Up With The Kardashians," stars the Kardashian-Jenner family living their lives as "normal" people. The reason for their fame is widely debated, but the family is very successful in their own right.
Their make-up and clothing brands came several years after their fame and appearance on TV. The family has made a brand for themselves, owning companies such as KKW Beauty, Kylie Cosmetics, Good American Jeans, and more recently SKIMS, a shapewear brand, and others that have been dominating the beauty industry. Not only do their brands make an impact on the industry, the faces and bodies of the A-List celebrities contribute to a large part of the unhealthy beauty standard in Western Culture.
Beauty standards and fashion trends come and go but the one thing that seems to stick around is colorism and body types. White women with thin bodies and large hips, like Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, are considered beautiful, pretty, or "hot" in the eyes of society. However, the bodies that these influencers have is similar to those of black women whose features like big hips, big breasts, and big butt are naturally given to them.
"The beauty standard is constantly and constantly changing because there will always be new trends," YouTuber Ibrahim Kamit said. "There will always be a new version of beauty."
Fashion trends, modern slang, and so on come and go, but the "new version of beauty" seems to get more and more unrealistic. Between fad diets, blatant lies about surgery, tanning, and photoshop, this unrealistic expectation of beauty seems to be taken to extremes.
European features are what Hollywood and the entertainment industry lean towards, especially in film and TV. If an adaptation is made and a character is black, usually someone who is biracial or light skinned will play the role. Sometimes adaptations can completely cast white actors in places where a person of color would fit better, for example the controversial casting of Scarlett Johansson in the film adaptation of “Ghost in the Shell.” Black women with European features and lighter skin are considered by many in Western society to be beautiful while black women of darker skin tones and African features are considered less beautiful, or sometimes not even considered in a conversation.
"With globalization in the media, eurocentric and caucasian features dominate the world. People of color are pressured to subject themselves to eurocentric beauty standards," Kamit said.
Beyond the apparent colorism issue in Hollywood and the unrealistic body standards on the internet, these expectations are set ridiculously high and make young women and aspiring entertainers insecure about their appearance. These standards could be deadly to mental health and physical health.
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