Roy in his teens wanted to have a beautiful girlfriend. While attending a mixed school, he had the opportunity of looking at the girls’ faces closely. Why faces? Arms, legs, complexion and length of hair were not much help to identify a girl’s beauty, he thought. The face is the only part of the human anatomy that depicts someone’s beauty. Not finding the beautiful face he was looking for, Roy turned to colourful magazines such as ‘Vogue’, ‘Glamour’, ‘Harper’s Bazaar’, and ‘Filmfare.’ In the process, he collected an exquisite array of pictures of women who were supposed to be beautiful according to magazine editors.
Unfortunately, he saw some flaws in every face. Some women had lips which were too thick. Others had well-proportioned lips but their eyes were either too small or too big. He scanned the faces of young women for many years looking for the elusive beauty. When he grew up he had the opportunity of visiting many foreign countries where beauty itself is a big industry. One day, he visited a model agency in New York where they scanned a number of women in two different ways. One was to scan the faces staring down from glamour magazines. The other was to interview young hopefuls who wanted to be top models in the fashion world.
He watched how the Managing Directress of the agency was interviewing young women. She was interviewing the young hopefuls with a set formula for beauty. The aspirants had to be tall, at least five feet nine inches. Roy thought of his own country’s girls, and realized that most Sri Lankan girls were not that tall. That may be the reason behind the country’s inability to produce international models. Secondly, those who wanted to be top models had to be between 13 and 19 years. Very few Sri Lankan girls opt to become models in their teens.
Thin girls
When he spoke to the directress, Roy found that she was looking for ‘thin’ girls. Most Sri Lankan girls want to be ‘slim’ and they do not like the word ‘thin’. A synonym for ‘slim’ is ‘slender.’ Men prefer girls with a slim waist. Those who are ‘fat’ frequent the gymnasium, take part in yoga and aerobic exercises with a desire to be ‘slim’. However, the New York agency was scouting for ‘thin’ girls. In fact, they were looking for ‘skinny’ girls who have not put on weight in their teens. Roy wondered whether the agency was looking for hangers for clothes!
Then Roy realized that the agency evaluates several thousand faces every year. Of them only five or six will have the good fortune of beginning their career as Models. A beginner would get $1,500 a day. Supermodels would get $25,000 a day. Meanwhile, stratospheric supermodels such as Naomi Campbell would get four times that amount. Modelling is a highly lucrative career in the West.
After the interview, the interviewer would say, “You’re not what we are looking for right now.” You do not hear such blunt remarks at local interviews. They would say, “We’ll let you know” and the job seeker goes home expecting the appointment letter. Roy saw how faces fall and tears roll down their cheeks when the dreams of would-be supermodels are shattered. However, one belligerent girl from California asked the interviewer, “What are you looking for? Can you tell me exactly?” But the interviewer had a stock reply. She said, “It’s hard to say. I know it when I see it.”
What is beauty?
Then, what is beauty? Roy wondered. He groped around the edge of the question as if trying to get a toehold on a cloud. Defining beauty is a daunting task. It’s like dissecting a soap bubble. He turned to philosophers for enlightenment. Then he remembered what Plato, the great Greek philosopher, said, “What is beautiful is good.” Roy was not satisfied because it was not a definition.
Most of the philosophers, poets and writers seem to be beating about the bush when it comes to defining beauty. Goethe says, “Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.” Not knowing what the secret natural laws are, Roy turned to Anatole France who said, “If I had to choose between beauty and truth, I would not hesitate, it is beauty that I should keep, feeling sure that it bears within it a truth loftier and more profound than truth itself.” Roy was confused.
At last, he realized that beauty is something that cannot be defined to the satisfaction of everybody. When you look at a woman, you see her beauty. Or you think she is beautiful. John Keats wrote, “Beauty is truth, truth, beauty.” Anatole France thought that beauty is more profound than truth itself.
Proportions
Whatever philosophers, poets and writers have to say, when we behold the proportions of an ideally attractive face, we see beauty in full bloom. We admire the contours of some faces. However, critics say that when we try to define beauty by looking for ideal proportions, we are in fact obscuring the truth by quantifying the unquantifiable. There seems to be some truth in the old adage, “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.”
When we get married to someone we think beautiful, she may not be a beauty for others. Although beauty is no prerequisite for marriage, most men prefer to have an attractive partner. In a way, every woman has some kind of beauty although they may not fit the standards of model agencies.
The mushrooming of beauty parlours in every nook and corner have the young and not-so-young women patronizing them. The bottom line is that a woman should be attractive to look at. Nature has endowed her with a fair portion of beauty. If any woman tries to be fairer through cosmetic changes to her face or skin, she courts disaster.
Beauty will remain an enigma like the Mona Lisa’s smile!