Prof. Garcia | ENG 1121 - HD40 | Spring 2022

Preliminary Research and Picking a Topic

The topic I’m most interested in researching is regarding the shifting beauty standards we’ve seen in American society since the early 2000’s and how it’s effected our culture. I find this topic interesting because what society defines as beautiful currently, compared to the early 2000’s have many positive differences and reflect the different changes in our culture. At one time mainstream celebrities like Kate Moss, Linsdey Lohan, and Paris Hilton were looked at as the standard of beauty. In comparison to the celebrities and cultural figures society looks up to todays like Kim Kardashian, Cardi B, or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, you can see the drastic differences worthy of mentioning as well as the different implications that come from both eras. Beauty standards at certain times in society, I believe can be very telling concerning a cultures past. It represents the changing of thoughts, and ideas and reflects the positive evolution of people. I picked this certain time frame because of the drastic differences there has been politically and culturally within the past 20 years and believe that these differences really effect how society defines beauty. Examples of questions I’m thinking of reflecting on are the following:

How are today’s beauty standards different than in the past?

How is culture connected to beauty?

what are examples of the negative effects past beauty standards had on society in America in the past?

In what ways are today’s beauty standards more positive and beneficial to society?

Who are examples of important mainstream cultural figures now and in the past? Why are/were they considered important? What attributed to their success?

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1 Comment

  1. Ruth Garcia

    Alexsandra, I really like this topic. I’ve never had a student do this and I think that an Op-Ed that argues that beauty standards have become more inclusive and reflective of a healthier body image is good. You might have a two part article–one part showing that things have improved and why this is good and then a second part (if you want) suggesting what still needs doing. Maybe–this might be too much and you might just be able to focus on bringing awareness to the moment we are in.

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