Transforming beauty: Discourses of race, icons, and beauty culture, 1965--1975.

摘要

The Black Arts Movement made a political statement by promoting the concept that "Black is Beautiful." I appropriate the phrase to symbolize the interconnection between social movements and the change in beauty culture during 1965-1975 when blackness became a part of mainstream beauty culture. During this time period, dark skin, afro hairstyles, and African-inspired fashions came into vogue because of socio-political icons like Angela Davis who symbolized the radical movements of the decade, thus marking a critical shift in power relations within beauty culture, race, class, and gender. Icons who popularized the styling of Black Nationalism inserted blackness into mainstream white beauty culture more forcefully than ever. Mainstream beauty culture, although seemingly monolithic, constantly changed by absorbing the influences of Black culture; however, mainstream beauty culture sanitized the radical symbolism of blackness to appeal to consumers who wanted to be stylish but not revolutionary. Although mainstream ideology attempted to neutralize symbols like the afro, these signs still retained some of their transformative power after becoming a part of beauty culture.;In Transforming Beauty, I identify changes in power and moments of resistance within beauty culture by examining the confluence of disparate texts such as the first Black fashion doll, the media coverage of the Miss America and Miss Black America pageants, print advertisements in Good Housekeeping and Ebony, and The New York Times' reporting of Nikki Giovanni's poetry, performances, and fashion. These various discourses reveal how in some spaces, such as within pageantry, mainstream beauty culture initially resisted the presence of blackness, and how in other spaces, such as within print media, beauty culture absorbed and embraced new icons of Black beauty more readily. By reading social, visual, and written discourses, this interdisciplinary study shows how counter-texts collide with hegemonic texts, and the fusion of the two establishes new icons like Black Barbie, Miss Black America, and Black cover models, which catalyze changes that allow for the representations of multiple and many cultural traditions within mainstream beauty culture.