Faye Lanfier won Miss California in 1924 and Miss America in 1925. From the heteronormative perspective of early 20th century America she was the pinnacle of stereotypical female beauty. But would she be considered so universally beautiful today?
Stereotypical standards of beauty have evidently shifted. Compare Faye Lanfier to modern Miss America contestants and she looks quite different.
Even something as apparently subjective as attractiveness is cultivated and inculcated through a tightly held system of hegeonomically constructed norms and values. What is now considered beautiful will surely shift, much like the fluidity of genre conventions.
But consider: who is it that codifies standards of beauty? How is this achieved? And, most importantly of all, what benefit does this impart to those who construct them?
