Search - Beauty in a Jar on DVD

Very Informative! A Must-See!

Jeffery Mingo | Homewood, IL USA | 01/29/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"You might not think that a documentary about the make-up industry would be interesting, but it really was. The work goes from saying how women in the 1890s would have associated wearing make-up with evening ladies, to women in the 1950s not walking around the house without being made up, to 1970s feminists condemning makeup, to its future in this century. The work is inclusive of Black women, not only post-Civil Rights, but a century ago when Madame C.J. Walker became a millionaire. The work even interviews Lypsinka, a drag artist, touching upon how issues of makeup and femininity may be of importance to biological males too. An essential undercurrent of the work is how female makeup creators really used their products as a stepping stone to bring women into the business arena. This work was a fascinating glimpse at how history, advertising, and gender politics interact with each other. It also speaks about makeup preferences between the generations: I could see grandmothers, mothers, and daughters watching this together and having profound conversations about it afterward. Then obviously, this work would be of great interest to gender studies classes and women's studies majors. Again, two loud snaps!"