Cosmetic Horror: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|"It's a form of violence, really, the way we look at women, and how we expect them to look and be -- for what sake? Not health, not survival, not enjoyment of life but just so you could look pretty. I'm constantly telling girls all the time, 'everything's airbrushed, everything's retouched. None of us look like that."|'''Rosario Dawson'''}}

 

 

 

 

 

Then there's the [[Truth in Television]] beauty rituals which can be really be horrifying in a non-comedic manner and can be, but aren't as often, [[Played for Drama]]:

 

* '''Painful:''' Tweezing, threading, sugaring, waxing, razoring, shaving. Piercing of the ears (and other body parts).

 

The one undergoing the beauty treatments is almost [[Always Female]], though when a man is in such a state, it's [[Played for Laughs]]. The [[Double Standard]] says it is unmanly to want/need such treatments to look good.

 

 

 

Both the comedic and real versions of the trope tend toward [[Unfortunate Implications]] since they support the idea that women must do these rituals to be beautiful enough, and aren't thin enough/light enough/pretty enough as they are. They also reinforce that women have to go after a goal for a type of beauty that is pretty much not realistically attainable, and definitely not for all body types.

 

 

 

* A Swiffer Sweeper commercial featured this. A woman was in the bathroom giving herself a facial. Her two children look in, see her wearing the facial mask, and run away screaming.

 

== [[Film]] ==

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* ''The Lady's Dressing Room'' by [[Jonathan Swift]].

 

* On ''[[The Suite Life of Zack and Cody]]'', the [[Almighty Janitor]] describes having seen one of the women of the Tipton hotel's staff "in her hair net" as frightening.

** In addition, the twins Zack and Cody mistook their own mother for a zombie seeing her in the midst of her mask-and-curlers.

** The show also mocks these sorts of procedures regularly. A facelift is described ''by the surgeon performing it'' as "We'll just grab her by the back of the head, shake her up and down a bit, and cut off the slack". [[Deadpan Snarker|Saffron]] suggests getting one done by doing a bungee jump with the elastic tied to the back of your head. And at one point Patsy is looking at a picture of a celebrity and says "One more facelift and [[Refuge in Audacity|she'll have a beard]]."

* ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]'':

'''Alex:''' You mean the place where snooty girls fake smile at us while they pluck our eyebrows until we scream and then say "you'd be so pretty if you took care of your skin"? Pass. }}

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* [http://www.promisescomic.com/comics/2011-10-21-126-cosno.png This] ''Promises Promises'' webcomic.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** In episode one, "The Elements of Harmony" Twilight is subjected to some really uncomfortable corsetry in Rarity's boutique. She is barely able to speak at one point from how tight the corset is.

** In "Over A Barrel", Rarity, coming out of the dark in her [[Cucumber Facial]] and fussing at the other ponies is enough to make them all scream and back up.

*** When it's revealed Rarity wears false eyelashes in "Mmmystery on the Friendship Express", she freaks out and breaks down in tears.

** The Black maid character was often seen from the legs down with the lower parts of a girdle visible, for comedy's sake. The white lady of the house, however, was never seen less than perfect.

[make up brush clears away and reveals the Spy vs. Spy face] }}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]

[[Category:Personal Appearance Tropes]]