I have seen Asian American mothers (young and old) take after their gangster high SkOoL children. They are being handed down white-washing tactics. Their children pass down Hollister, A&F, LV bags, Gucci, Burberry to their mothers who wear such lavish merchandise for show as mere status symbols for all to see. Mothers are also trying to rejuvenate and to restore a sense of youth. They patronize their daughters' salons and pay wholesome amount of money (when there is a deficit...they cannot distinguish b/w need and want) to buff their hairdo, to manage their eyebrows, and to feel a little more plastic. Their desperate attempts to return to youth mirrors either a mother-daughter affinity or an envy for beauty. The counterargument would be: What's wrong with rejuvenation? Because we can't find the fountain of youth, botox/salon-visits are keys to beauty. My point is that beauty rests in the daring, unaltered changes of your body--I revisit natural beauty as a touchstone in a person's life, defying age as just a number, and harnessing beauty as only skin deep.
This coincide with my criticism of makeup: [Even though] Natalia said that makeup enhances your features (what you already have), I believe that it is unnecessary because you already have those features. To apply makeup is to apply a coat of artificial material (man-made) to naturally grown and aging skin. If beauty is truly there, it is skin deep, it does not need enhancement, it should be radiant from the start. To use makeup is to enhance the features in order for the features to be more visible to other people's eyes. The pitfall here is the same as purchasing a consumer product that is "high-end", luxurious, and expensive to the point where you wish upon your credit card once your wallet deflates to its first purchase. To subscribe to fashion is to purchase designer handbags (no knockoffs unless you're desperate/cheap), shop at designer outlets, put your face in Cosmo/GQ magazines all week, and to rely on makeup as an extension of your identity, not just for a singular occasion and then deny its importance to you.
Marx's idea of fetishism of the commodity expresses the terrific tendency for humans to reify inanimate objects into pure objects/artifacts of expression and substitution almost. The idea is that commodities become more than part of the person: the handbag doesn't just belong to the buyer, it is now part of the buyer. The actual physical ownership of the bag equates the bag with the bag's owner because the owner adores the bag and drools over it. In toting it on her arm and displaying it in public, she is making more than just an ownership statement or status display (ostentatiousness), she is also indicating that the bag is part of her, and it is her. The bag becomes an extension of her, it becomes her. It alludes to her character. You can even say that the bag fills in the woman's lack of self-esteem etc. Whatever it may be, the woman is now one with the bag in a sense that the bag accurately feigns her status/class. This is false consciousness. The woman becomes fully unaware that this path of assimilation is a tactic to distract her from her real socioeconomic status. If she works in a sweatshop for a living, buying this bag may be a gateway to negate or to deny her low class status/position. However this act is an act of false consciousness. Marx said that when the poor class believe that they are actually middle class, and begin to villify the lower class (their own selves), they have false consciousness, which is pretty awful and detrimental. When persons of an obvious class identify with another class, they are being misled and brainwashed into thinking that they are have some kind of hope. They do, but they cannot subscribe to the Bourgeious class when they are the Proletariat.
We notice this all the time when the product becomes part and parcel of the buyer. Cadillac commercials make use of female models and male models driving their sports cars. They emphasize sex appeal (leg and feet on the pedal), sexual prowess/energy (leg pushing on the pedal and acceleration of vehicle), efficiency and progress (vehicle moves forward at hyper speed) of the driver AND the vehicle as one entity, as a singular apparatus moving so fast that they leave reality behind. The car becomes a representation of the driver/owner and it is an extension of the owner/driver. You can also liken driving a car with having the ability to choose your path, to steer your way, to control. Cars are very much an extension of the driver. You see this in road rage. When people are inside of their cars, they are one with the car. The car is driven in such a way that expresses drivers' personalities and much more.
If parents believe that in order to assimilate and to abandon the "old world" values and traditions behind because they finally realized that they're in America, and not China, they are making progress depending on whether you support parents loosening up or not. But if parents believe that assimilation happens by acquiring a handbag or expensive wallet with brand value, they are misled. You do not need to show off your fancy belongings in order to impress other people. In fact you are conforming by purchasing factory-made bags which prices are inflated and the article is result of slave labour overseas. So not only are you purchasing a bag that eats a hole in your finances, you're also indirectly perpetuating slave labor/sweatshops. To believe that owning a bag will make you "one of the Americans" is a sign of false consciousness and a sign of consumerism at its worst, dragging you into catalogues filled with weekly sales, clearances, and switch in "seasonal" items. By introducing shoppers with a new line of clothing, the company hooks shoppers and impresses upon them a tangible need to acquire new items over the old.
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