Sunday, March 25, 2012

The Differences In Sexuality illustrated in Western Vs. Eastern Pop Culture


Image DetailImage DetailImage DetailImage Detail

One could not deny the stark differences in which sexuality is portrayed in these four pictures, these aspects are always noticeable when comparing western and eastern cultures especially in terms of pop culture. Its Interesting to observe that the two cultures comparatively speaking have very divergent perspectives in terms on the aspect of beauty. Being born and raised from an "eastern" background i must admit that my ideas of beauty is different from the mainstream american pop culture's background. The reason i decided to write about this is the fact that noticeable differences does exists between the two. To put into perspective my general opinion on western beauty that it basically puts more emphasis on the bodily features and blatant portrayal of sexuality, female individuality and assertiveness compared to the eastern "ideal" beauty portrayal of blatant femininity (in women), doll or childlike features, petite figures and submissive/ vulnerable gestures. My objective here is not to stereotype by race! but i want to share my observations with people reading this blog regarding what i find distinctive in how woman is portrayed in these two very different cultures, something i find quite intriguing the more i am exposed to it.
Judging from the things i see culture plays such an important role in shaping these particular preferences, people here in the states tend to describe beauty in a very different way than that in the east. None more so prevalent when looking at Hollywood movies i noticed the fact that the overall distinctive physical features such as big breasts, perfect body and the woman's independent and individuality plays an important role and defining the ideal woman compared to that of the east people tend to focus on women in general as being submissive, vulnerable, childlike features and cute child like gestures as appealing and desirable. Comparing the four picture illustrates my ideas perfectly notice the stark differences in feminine gestures illustrated in the pictures above whereas western women: Beyonce and lady gaga in this case portrays sensuality explicitly whereas the eastern example being members from the Korean pop girl band SNSD portrays themselves as being cute and childlike in behavior.
Truthfully im not to familiar with the western portrayal of beauty due to my lack of knowledge based background of western culture as a whole about the roles of woman, however i can give sufficient perspective on eastern idea of feminine beauty due to my familiarity, interaction and cultural background. I can pretty much say that easterners tend to view women as an object of ascetical beauty sometimes deprived from their physical sensuality, they put heavy emphasis on women's overall feminine elegance vulnerable qualities hence the child like like portrayal. And most mainstream eastern culture woman tends to shy away from provocative gestures of sexuality where in this case woman emphasize heavily on female humility (shy like qualities) as the proper etiquette on how a woman should behave or risked being shunned or being marked off as immoral by the society. Western woman in the other hand put great emphasis on individuality, self expression and being more assertive, and having a sense of sensual allure of them being the object of desire and their ability to attract the opposite sex.
So you decide! can you notice the difference? most of you reading this probably are more familiar with western pop culture so i think i wouldn't need to illustrate it as an example however il put one music video of an eastern pop culture (korean pop) as an example instead for those unfamiliar with the notion of woman in eastern culture here's a music video to illustrate my arguments. And once again im not trying to stereotype! its just me thinking out loud so any feed backs are welcome:)

No comments:

Post a Comment