Beauty Factory Essay

After viewing the "Beauty Factory" documentary through a critical lens, I can affirm that beauty contests form an important part of the daily Venezuelan culture. So much so that, if you ask any Venezuelan girl what she wants to be when she grows up, she is very likely to respond, "una miss”. As seen in the documentary, in Venezuela it is very easy to find beautiful women in all places, of any race and social class, and it is not uncommon for there to be as many modeling academies because as I mentioned before, many little girls dream of being misses. But, how much do these participants really go through or sacrifice to achieve their dreams? To begin with, what’s do beauty contests like Miss Venezuela really signify for the Venezuelan people? Why are they so important? When asked a similar question on the documentary, a man on the street promptly responded, “Miss Venezuela is the only dignified representation that we’ve had …show more content…
Essentially, what does it mean to be una miss how does one become a miss? To answer these questions using a more simplistic approach, being a miss is mainly characterized by the embodiment of exaggerated femininity. In other words, the role of miss can only be portrayed by a woman whose image and qualities fulfill what is considered to be ‘traditional’ for a (female) woman. For example, a miss should take care of her physical appearance by going to the gym, using makeup, doing her nails/ hair, and in general she has to represent a well-groomed woman. Likewise, a miss is trained at an early age to perform according to the typical gender roles or expectations society has of women. Beauty Factory attains to this idea by exhibiting what young women are taught at Gisselle’s Modeling Agency. Here, we see little girls learning how to set a table, what each glass is for and overall getting educated the purpose of each ‘kitchen’