Brave New World: The Culture Of Beauty

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley defines the people in their society by how they look, whether they are attractive or unattractive. Even in our society today, we see a lot of people being discriminated on their beauty, which makes a lot of men and women feel as if they are not good enough. In The Culture of Beauty, Gerdes states how there was an international study done by the Dove Campaign that “...thirty-two hundred women worldwide found that only 2% of women from ten countries considered themselves “beautiful.” Indeed the study found that 60% of these women agreed that “society expects women to enhance their appearance” (Gerdes, The Culture of Beauty). Those who favor the ‘real beauty’ ideal that society and Brave New World portrays suggest

As a result of the wide variety of media that is in the world, it plays as one of the main factors to most of the body distortion and low self-esteems that is put on men and women. According to Lau, beauty or body perfection, “...is a social/cultural construct, and that advertising, lifestyle/entertainment magazines, movies, scripted and reality television, documentaries and even public service campaigns all play a role in normalising the unrealistic pursuit of body perfection” (Lau, Harris-Moore…). Because of the broad variety of media there is, each has a different perspective on what the ideal ‘real beauty’ is, this causes a lot of pressure to be put upon people on how they should truly appear. In addition, media is also setting the standards that people should start looking like celebrities. As stated by a plastic surgeon, Z. Paul Lorenc in The Culture of Beauty, is that “...one of several concerns is the more and more Americans are seeking plastic surgery because of the very high beauty bar set by celebrities” (Gerdes, The Culture of Beauty). Due to the media constantly flaunting how attractive celebrities are, it makes men and women feel as if they are not good enough and that they need to modify themselves to become socially acceptable in the eye of

In Huxley’s vision of society, the people are organized into caste systems and are brainwashed based off of what is attractive and unattractive. This is most similar to society today, by how attractiveness within relationships and jobs is society’s way of becoming its own caste system and how media is controlling people’s perspectives on attraction. Since the people in the novel were put into social castes based on their looks, it was difficult for them to date or fit in if they were unattractive. And as stated by Huxley, in their society if one’s “...different, one’s bound to be lonely. They’re beastly to one” (Huxley, 137). This proves that in comparison to today’s society, that if someone does not meet the standard attractiveness and is an outcast of the other people, then they will have a more difficult time fitting into the ideal ‘norm’ for society. Besides the people being outcasted in their societies, both in the novel and today, men and women are also being conditioned and controlled to believe what is considered attractive. In Brave New World, the people were genetically born brainwashed to believe that if you look any different, you are to judge them and view them in a lower perspective, and by comparison, in present-day society the people are controlled by the media on how they refer to what ‘real beauty’ should be. Due to