a clamouring for compassion?
i can recall an unmentionable once stating that the most memorable beautiful eyes he had ever seen were those of a middle eastern girl on the cover of national geographic some years back. surely an image we have all seen, here is the updated version to include the then and now:
in any case, when clicking on the child health site, as i often do, i noted that out of the 2 pakistani children pictured, one has rather fair skin and once again, striking light eyes.
is it an incorrect cultural assumption of me to assume that the majority of people from this region have dark eyes? or is it that our media is using these images when looking to instigate action and empathy from its audience?
these images are undeniably striking, and while yes, in each of them the children featured are beautiful, are they geared to please caucasion eyes? i certainly can't help but wonder...
2 Comments:
i don't think you're making a cultural assumption, it's more of a... genetics assumption. I kinda looked this up and in an article about eye color and regions they mentioned the National Geographic woman under green eyes (as the most famous photograph). http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/e/ey/eye_color.htm
I also saw some websites for Pakistanis, for example how to put on makeup according to your eye color (and blue was the first one listed), and a Pakistani discussion board about finding out your childrens' eye colors by putting in you and your partner's eye colors and calculating it. So on. Anyways, I think I've drawn two conclusions: 1) It is better to look more western, or white, or something -- light eyes are definitely seen as superior, more attractive, etc. That's not surprising since light eyes are rare across the globe. Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if paler skin is more sought after, etc.
2) ahhh, I can't think of it right now. I had it in my head. Let me chew on it.
So anyways, I don't know if those pictures are used to appeal to AMERICAN audiences, necessarily. When you think poor starving children, don't you think of skinny Africans or India or other dark-skinned, dark-eyed people? Isn't that what you picture? Not blonde hair blue eyed kids. I feel like the kid in the second picture has very beautiful eyes that draw you in, but his purpose isn't necessarily to appeal to Western audiences. Of course, then you can argue (and I wouldn't argue) that the more removed from us the kids feel, the less obliged we are to help them. So maybe if you saw this white looking kid being miserable, you might feel more struck. I dunno. I just blabbered for a long time. -jules
Oh, another thing, I feel like that picture of the woman was so famous because her eyes were so beautiful and unique, but she was also so exotic and basically a representation of Afghanistan. I dunno... -jules
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