Beauty [CULT]

What defines beauty? 

Could it be the million dollar make-up industry that convinces us that the definition of beauty is something found in a tube, jar or at a store? 

Or could it be the clothing designers and fashion folks who would probably suggest that beauty is translated in the clothes you adorn or the type of jewelry worn?

What about the plastic surgeons who have somehow managed to convince us that beauty can be transformational, just one procedure at a time?

Perhaps it could be the modern mainstream media that has manipulated all of these notions of beauty and transcribed them through channels of stereotypes and unrealistic expectations?

Regardless of how you approach the term, defining beauty is something done by the culture. Through time, American females have somehow fallen to the threshold of how we are seen within society. Whether we are the subject or the object, determining between the two is, unfortunately, never really up to us. This weekend, I took a day trip to the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles. The exhibition really put into perspective the reality of the iconic, yet ironic culture of beauty in the U.S. By combining mixed media graphic art, contemporary advertisements, photo shoots and video, I wandered the exhibition doing my best to wrap my head around something that I have always understood to be the truth. 

Sometimes, there is much more beauty in the lies we believe than whatever the actuality that something truly is. 

To me, beauty is more than the clothes you wear, the products you have, or the shape your body is in. It is much more than what money can buy or surgery can "enhance", rather it is the confidence that comes from feeling refreshingly satisfied, appreciated and happy from the inside out. I'd like to see money buy me that.