The Neon Demon: Movie Vs. Pop-culture
"The Neon Demon," The Psychological horror movie directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and had Elle Fanning ,The sleeping beauty (well, the arrogant version) as the lead actress. The story about little girl with big dream in big city. But, this girl is special. Shining like no other girls, the definition of "Perfect" is her.
Aurora AKA The Sleeping Beauty from "Maleficent," 2014
Jesse from "The Neon Demon," 2016.
What I appreciate in this movie the most is Stylish, make-up artist and the lead actress's , Elle, acting. All these three principles create a whole new dimension of Jesse character. From sweet girl to the arrogant woman. The make-up and style changed the the appearance making "Jesse" become the real confident model, and make-up design s makes the audience feel the huge different between the two versions of Jesse. Anyway, the appearance is just a shell. What is also important is the actress whether she can convinces the audience to be truly believed that she is a whole new person, not the sweet bright smile princess anymore since I believe that the audience would remember her that way.
This movie focus the current problem among girls. Every girls seek for beauty. Some even desperate for beauty that they could kill for it. The society say "What important is your personality" but is that phase real? In the definition of "real," this meant does it exist or
it is just "a ghost." Everybody knows it. But, not everyone care about it. Unfortunately, only few people do. If the phase is real why would love at first sight exist? Not just only in the movie but also in real life. The movies show guy fall for the beautiful girl without knowing her at all. In real life this also happen. Most of my guy friends do this too, and the nice girl but not beautiful will be treated in the different way and left alone or being made fun of. Why would my beautiful friend got chosen for school stage drama instead of my friend who spend afford and time to practice acting, not to mention that she is talented ? This is why some women choose to be hurt from plastic surgery rather hurt from society. For Thai culture the ideal beauty type would be to have white skin, mix Chinese or Korean face and skinny. But is this the definition of "Beauty"? "I used to buy a drug that could makes me gain weight because back then chubby is the ideal type," my mom said. Now some women use drug to lose weight and even brighten their skin, which hurt them because using drug cannot makes body's weight decrease. It is cardio and good diet that can makes you lose weight. Some drug already took away girls' life. "Fluoxetine" used for depression cure. But, it is ingredient in some weight losing drug. it's side effect is losing of appetite. Anyway it can cause shaking and anxiousness. It is not supposed to be used by people who don't have mental problem. This is why the "Pop Culture" hurts society.
"Perfection is a disease of a nation"
"We try to fix something but you can't fix what you can't see It's the soul that needs the surgery."
Pretty hurts - BEYONCE
Pop culture comes and goes. It is only popular in majority group of people. The one that fit the ideal type is the lucky one and those are not, well...not so lucky. I'm not the lucky one. I am 100% Thai. My guy friends always be like " You? EWWWWW", "Shut up, you tan skin." True story haha.This is the main reason why I am disgusted by the pop culture. This K-pop girl ideal type culture started before I even realise it. During that period of time internet start to takes a big role and Korea took advantage of it by creating girl-group and boy-brand marketing to to improve their economic and they succeed. Primary students started to watch these singers via YouTube and television. The Korean beauty trend started since then. But, Someday it will certainly gone. It is pop-culture anyway. The beauty ideal type change through history, which is impossible to defines "Beauty." There is no such a thing as Folklore beauty since it change through time.
"Pretty girls don't know the things that I know."
- Magnet by Disclosure feat. Lorde
Women's Ideal Body Types Throughout History by BuzzFeed (since 1:23 min shows clear differences among period of time)
Anyway, Jesse had been qualified as the definition of beauty. Her entrance to runway shakes the whole model field. In this field beauty is everything .
"Beauty is everything."- The Neon Demon ,2016.
Jessi knows that she is beautiful. But, once everyone is jealous of her beauty and some hypnotised by her beauty, she started to enamoured her own beauty. This started when she was chosen to be the grand finale for fashion runway even that she is the newbie in the field, which is the slap in the face for the older model. As the bright blue neon light, which represent her innocent turns to red and she started to fell for herself.
Check This!!!
What confused the audience is its ending. The make-up artist who was hypnotised by her beauty and other two ex-popular model kill
her. Using her blood for bathing and eat her. Elizabeth Bathory was famous for blood bathing to keep her young, so I think blood bathing represent how they wants to be her and want to be young, so that they can stay in model's field longer since being model required to be young. After that, the make-up artist lying on the floor pee the blood and she say down there in the blood happily because she can finally become one with her crush, Jesse. The other two keep on living their life. One quit being model, one continue. The continue being model one, Gigi, feel guilty about killing and eating Jesse, so puke out the blood and eye ball before she try to cut her stomach open and die. I believe "woman would kill for" what the director wants to say. From my analysis, there is no actual demon in this movie. No one is neon demon. No one represent neon demon. Neon demon is the ultimate eager for beauty.
I am not disgusted or hate the beautiful or anti the beautiful face. I also feel depressed sometime when people called me fat or made fun of me. I do admire beauty like Victoria secret's model and other beautiful people. I admire them. But, I hate this pop culture because it took away girls life. Some committed suicide and some die from using drug. It would be better if girls use this eager for beauty to take care of themselves and make the best version of them, not " I want to be like her" because defining beauty is impossible unless your set the standard of beauty for yourselves.