Aura Kasih and The Myth of Beauty

I happened to stumble on To's status in facebook. He had this status polling, asking who likes Aura Kasih and who doesn't. Out of curiosity, I gave comment, answering that I never really like her. She is just too bitchy. Apparently, On gave also a comment on that topic. He said that every guy who doesn't like Aura Kasih, especially her sexy body, is not normal.

JLEB! Hey, hey, hey, there must be something wrong here. Or was it me who is abnormal? For me, the impression of being bitchy beat the sexiness out of her. I mean, yes she might be a sexy girl, for being able to be an artist. But she never stroke me in the eye, not even in heart.

Suddenly, I remembered the discussion in the night before with Gin about the myth of beauty. Yeah, the hegemony over how woman should be, about an ideal woman. And apparently, I can be seen as an outsider from the myth's perspective. And being an outsider, being different from the "common norm" will automatically place us as an exile. The Others, borrowing the term from Gayatri Spivak.

Consciously, or unconsciously, people nowadays has accepted the imported version of this myth. They developed some kinds of fetishes towards woman body. And an interesting fact that people seemed to forget came from one of the oldest civilization in earth, China Empire. They had Four Classical Beauties. One of them was Yang Guifeng. Interestingly, Yang Guifeng never possessed a slim and slender shape. She was a bit overweight and stocky instead. But hey, people considered her as the classical beauty.

So came again the classical motion for a debate, what is a beauty? The most neutral answer would be; it's a relative matter. But if it is relative, how could there be the common and uncommon? Normal and abnormal? How could it be that considering Aura Kasih sexy and admiring her is normal while not admiring her means you are not a normal guy?

I happened to admire some girls who are not considered sexy by many people, yet for me they are still okay. Contrary to most of the guys who like big bo***es, I like the small one, the cherry one, but not the "flat" one (got to admit that this might be an influence from my lineage though). In some other cases, even Mit said that And is not beautiful, thus she wondered why could I be crazy about And. Or what about Faj who considered Macy Gray hot, who considered Waris Diri as the sexiest model?

So, to the guys who do not think that Aura Kasih is beautiful, do not worry, pals. You are still as normal as a guy can be, since beauty is a relative thing. This proved one thing, especially to On, there is no normal or abnormal thing in beauty!

PS : Since this note has stirred some misleading opinions, let me emphasize here that Aura Kasih is just the illustration. What I want to discuss is not her, all the gossip, and being judgmental. The main point here is the social construct that has become a hegemony over perspective and thus eliminating the individual opinion. That's all.... Hell with the artist!