Beauty and the East: Embodying Nation, Gender, and Class in Asian Beauty Cultures

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Beauty and its production, reproduction, and embodied practices have long been central to the way we think about race, class, gender and national identities in a transnational context. This panel examines social, cultural, and historical processes in East, South, and Southeast Asia through the beauty industry, specifically its wide range of beauty products and services. Collectively, all four papers investigate the cultivation of beauty cultures and ideals through the analyses of beauty advertisements and historical materials as well as ethnographic research with media audiences and local consumers. Jinglin Piao concentrates on the olfactory stereotypes of gender and ethnicity in East and Southeast Asia embodied in scented soap. Emilie Takayama argues that beauty ideals fostered and promoted by established Japanese beauty corporations through various aesthetic procedures became a driving force for urban middle class desires during the 1920s and 30s. Focusing on contemporary Japan, Michelle Ho tracks the commodification of race and gender in pantyhose advertisements featuring women wearing blackface. Lastly, Sally McLaren studies the racial and colonial implications of skin-whitening products in postwar Sri Lankan media by looking at audience responses to representations of fair skin. These inquiries into the beauty products in Asian markets open up important questions about issues of commodification, social mobility as well as national identity and economy. This timely panel is significant for exploring the global circulation of beauty products, which operate to create new social, economic, and political meanings in the 21st Century Asia.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing

Session Organizers

• Jinglin Piao, Cornell University

• Michelle Ho, Stony Brook University

Chair

• Jinglin Piao, Cornell University

Individual Presentations

• Consuming “Civilization and Enlightenment” and Modernity: The History of the Modern Beauty Industry in Pre-War Japan - Emilie Takayama, Northwestern University

• Consuming Women in Blackface: Racialized Affect and Transnational Femininity in Japanese Advertising - Michelle Ho, Stony Brook University

• Scents and Sensibility: The Sensual Significance of Soap - Jinglin Piao, Cornell University

• Fair Traditions: Sri Lankan Media Audiences and the Cultural Value of White Skin - Sally McLaren, Kwansei Gakuin University

Discussant

• Laura Miller, University of Missouri-St. Louis