Lilanka Botejue
A parent I know was very keen on getting his children featured in advertisements. His daughter who just 5 and was chosen for a shoot. Because she was said to be very cute. I was rather surprised because I believe that these were not things encouraged by most parents for a variety of reasons.
According to some, this is the first step in getting your child an ego boost because they will be seen on TV, on hoardings, print ads etc. Eventually, this leads to extra attention at school, from other parents and gives a false sense of importance to the child. They get used to the attention for merely being cute and famous
Is it really an achievement to be the chosen look of an advertisement, I doubt it. What about the intelligence, kindness, good morals of the children.
Sadly, these things don’t get featured in the marketing-driven beauty and advertisement industry. It’s looking for a face but not substance. So the children who start off in this industry get used to attention based on something without substance. With time, like all things in the beauty industry the trends looks change. The kid grows up and is no longer cute.
All this time the kid’s sense of worth was based on and bolstered by his or her looks alone and that look is not forever. It changes. But their ego and sense of worth now have nothing to hold it up. So then the kids start looking for other ways to get that attention, to reassure themselves of their importance in the lives of people, as depicted through the lens of a camera. They crave attention at any cost, hence starts the problems. Not all kids who feature in ads end up with self-confidence issues. But many do and the industry promotes this.
The beauty industry thrives on insecurities. If you are dark, use a whitening cream. If you are fat, take a supplement, If you have frizzy hair, tame it. If you have dark circles, use a whitening patch. If you are pale, use a bronzing lotion or get an artificial tan. If you have short lashes, use volumizing mascara or wear fake lashes. You will never be perfect. You will never reach that ultimate goal. And that is precisely how the industry makes money.
Because we are chasing utopia. We are chasing a shapeless phantom notion of beauty and it is doing nobody any good except the marketing and sales departments of all the beauty enhancing products.
Let us look at how the notion of beauty has evolved over the years, Elizabeth Taylor to Marilyn Monroe, Twiggy, Kate Moss, Angelina Jolie, Aishwarya Rai, Beyonce, Deepika Padukone, how diverse are these looks?
In Sri Lanka, Rukmani Devi, Ramani Bartholomeusz, Swarna Mallawarachchi, Rosy Senanayake, Jacqueline Fernandez, Pooja Umashankar, Sabrina Herft, how diverse does it get?
And who decides?
Who says they are the best? No one. Just a clever marketing campaign. Most of them are known to the public as just faces’.Not human beings. An image created to sell products and services
Is this the world we want our kids to be a part of?
Utopian beauty which they will never achieve?
A half-baked existence based on insecurities?
People have enough issues to deal with. Children grow up with numerous challenges. We should not add more irritating elements to their trauma. The industry will continue to thrive as long as we feed it with our insecurities. Let’s not feed it our children as well.
