The Picture of Ugly Women Means Powerless as Represented in the Movie Entitled '200 Pounds Beauty'
The Picture of Ugly Woman Means Powerless in Korean Movie entitled ‘200 Pounds Beauty’
By: Mustika Nur Amalia
(Gender and Literature Studies)
This Essay is written in order to fulfill the final project of the subject ‘Gender and Literature Studies’. The main focus of this essay is to discuss the ugly women that depicted in the ‘200 pounds beauty’ since this movie highlights the pain of Hana as the main character who is considered ugly because she is fat. The terms of ‘fat’ here gives the message to women that women should not be ‘fat’ to be beauty. This issue is one of the practices of women as sex object that demands the women to be concern about their body. In 1913, Webster’s dictionary defined beauty as “properties pleasing the eye, the ear, the intellect, the aesthetic faculty or the moral sense.” But in 2004, the default definition of beauty has shriveled pitifully (Etcoff, 2004:4). However, nowadays the concept of beauty more concern about physical appearance. Wood states in his article entitled ‘Perceptions of Female Beauty in the 20th Century’ that definition of beauty in the 20th century, when referring to human physical beauty, are nearly always constructed in terms of outward appearance and sexual attractiveness. Etcoff (2004) also argues that beauty is visual; in fact, it is the same visual – the eye popping features and stunning proportions of a few hand-picked beauty icons. Orbach (2004) also mentioned that women of all ages and classes want to claim beauty for themselves, there has been an insidious narrowing of the beauty aesthetic to a limited physical type – thin, tall – which inevitably excludes millions and millions of women. Being beauty gives the women more power to reach all the qualities based on Orbach (2004) statement that women regard being beautiful as the result of qualities and circumstance: being loved, being engaged in activities that one wants to do, having a close relationship, being happy, being kind, having confidence,
By: Mustika Nur Amalia
(Gender and Literature Studies)
This Essay is written in order to fulfill the final project of the subject ‘Gender and Literature Studies’. The main focus of this essay is to discuss the ugly women that depicted in the ‘200 pounds beauty’ since this movie highlights the pain of Hana as the main character who is considered ugly because she is fat. The terms of ‘fat’ here gives the message to women that women should not be ‘fat’ to be beauty. This issue is one of the practices of women as sex object that demands the women to be concern about their body. In 1913, Webster’s dictionary defined beauty as “properties pleasing the eye, the ear, the intellect, the aesthetic faculty or the moral sense.” But in 2004, the default definition of beauty has shriveled pitifully (Etcoff, 2004:4). However, nowadays the concept of beauty more concern about physical appearance. Wood states in his article entitled ‘Perceptions of Female Beauty in the 20th Century’ that definition of beauty in the 20th century, when referring to human physical beauty, are nearly always constructed in terms of outward appearance and sexual attractiveness. Etcoff (2004) also argues that beauty is visual; in fact, it is the same visual – the eye popping features and stunning proportions of a few hand-picked beauty icons. Orbach (2004) also mentioned that women of all ages and classes want to claim beauty for themselves, there has been an insidious narrowing of the beauty aesthetic to a limited physical type – thin, tall – which inevitably excludes millions and millions of women. Being beauty gives the women more power to reach all the qualities based on Orbach (2004) statement that women regard being beautiful as the result of qualities and circumstance: being loved, being engaged in activities that one wants to do, having a close relationship, being happy, being kind, having confidence,
References: Albers, Susan. 2010. "Fat is Beautiful". (online) available at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/comfort-cravings/201004/fat-is-beautiful. Accessed on May 8, 2012 Butler, Judith Etcoff, Orbach, Scott, & D’Agostino. 2004. The Real Truth about Beauty: The Global Report. Findings the Global Study on Women, Beauty, and Well Being. New York: Strategy One. Helyghen, Franciss. 2011. Evolutionary Psychology. Encyclopedia of Quality of Life Research Articles. Berlin. …… Ideal Beauty of Korean Actresses. (online) available at http:// soompi.com/ . Accessed on May 8, 2012. Jeffreys, Sheila. 2005. Beauty and Misogyny. New York: Rouledge Publishing. Lee, So Hee. 2009. The Dinamics of Body Politics in Korea. Guest Lecture at NCU. Seoul. Li, Min, Belk, Kimura, & Bahl. 2008. Skin Lightening and Beauty in Four Asian Countries. Advances in Consumer Research Journal, 35: 444-450 Turnbul, James Wood, Julio. Perception of Female Beauty in the 20th Century. (online) available at http:// tripod.com/. Accessed on may 8, 2012. Yoo, Julia. Culture Shock. (online) available at http://web.mit.edu/cultureshock/fa2006/www/essays/koreanbeauty.html. Accessed on May 8, 2012.