Conformity, Beauty, and Identity in Three Cultural Essays

Introduction: Three Essays, One Theme

Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s "In the Kitchen," Susan Bordo's "The Empire of Images in our World of Bodies," and Josie Appleton's "The Body Piercing Project" seem to have very little in common at first glance, given their different genres: non-fiction autobiography, sociological discussion of media's impact, and a journalistic report on the changing perception of taboo. Yet at the core, each work is essentially about what people endure in order to be accepted by their society.

Hair, Heritage, and Assimilation in Gates's 'In the Kitchen'

"In the Kitchen" tells the story of an African-American household and how family life centers on the kitchen. This scene of domesticity is one of tradition and cherished childhood memories. One of the most powerful senses in the creation of memory is smell. "The most important thing about our gas-equipped kitchen was that Mama used to do hair there… There was an intimate warmth in the women's tones as they talked with my mama while she did their hair" (Gates 122). The kitchen thus becomes not only the center of nurturing but also a source of financial support for the family.

However, one of the things the narrator recalls from his childhood is that when his mother did other women's hair, she would straighten it — making it less curly, less "kinked," and ultimately less symbolic of African-American heritage. By straightening their hair, the women in Mama's kitchen were erasing part of their ethnicity and attempting to replicate a feature of the white majority population. The word "kitchen" in this context "is the very kinky bit of hair at the back of the head, where our neck meets the shirt collar. If there ever was one part of our African past that resisted assimilation, it was the kitchen" (Gates 124). The narrator, understanding straightened hair to be associated with goodness — and that goodness in turn associated with whiteness — spends his childhood desiring what he calls the "good hair."

Media, Body Image, and the Beauty Norm in Bordo's 'Empire of Images'

In "The Empire of Images in our World of Bodies," Susan Bordo illustrates the ways in which our lives are saturated by the visual iconography of a consumerist society. Specifically, Bordo is concerned with the ways in which perceptions of the human body tend to conform to the body types that dominate visual culture. Everything in society is measured against some visual ideal that no one can achieve through natural means. "'Aging beautifully' used to mean wearing one's years with style, confidence, and vitality. Today, it means not appearing to age at all. And — like breasts that defy gravity — it's becoming a new bodily norm" (Bordo 1).

The modern conception of beauty is shaped by extensive plastic surgery that transforms naturally beautiful women into a homogenous ideal, where those considered beautiful all appear to come from the same mold. Anything that falls outside this normative — such as retaining a natural appearance — is treated by the public as undesirable. Bordo's central thesis is that the celebrity iconography of popular culture dictates the self-perception of the broader population. Although her argument is a pertinent one, she appears to overlook the role of parental responsibility in the erosion of children's self-perception. Bordo criticizes psychologist Sheryl Lamb and her advice encouraging mothers to let their little girls wear "thick blue eye shadow, spaghetti straps and bra straps intertwined, long and leggy with short black dresses" because they are "silly and adorable, sexy and marvelous all at once" (Bordo 1). While the author expresses disgust at Lamb's position, she makes no mention of parents' responsibility for safeguarding their children's — particularly their daughters' — self-esteem. The purpose of body modification has thus shifted through time from a form of rebellion to an accepted act of self-expression and self-labeling in an era of identity questioning.

Conclusion: The Cost of Conformity

Working in tandem, these three pieces explore the perils of trying to conform to a societal norm. The media, through film and photographic images, tells the population what they should aspire to be and how they are supposed to look in order to be considered beautiful by the current historical moment. The three authors each write with the same fundamental principle: to warn the public that the cost of so-called beauty is the loss of self.

Works Cited

Appleton, Josie. "The Body Piercing Project: Why Some People are Staking Their Being on Their Bellybutton Ring." 2003. Web. May 6, 2011.

Bordo, Susan. "The Empire of Images in our World of Bodies." 2010. Web. May 6, 2011. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i17/17b00601.htm

Gates, Henry Louis Jr. "In the Kitchen." 121–131. Print.