Regimes of Beauty in Post-Revolutionary Laos
Warren Mayes, Department of Anthropology, RSPAS, Australian National University
The image of the ‘Lao girl’ metaphorically associated with the beauty of a flower is a contemporary icon eclipsing all other representations of national culture in Laos. As the socialist regime that seized power in 1975 abandons its revolutionary ideals and moves to join the regional market economy, the search for new ideals legitimating the urban elite has led to a reemphasis of traditional culture. Once valorised as revolutionary comrades in the anti-colonial struggle, women are now increasingly the object of a new fetish for ‘cultural’ beauty. While they continue to be largely excluded from the political leadership and encouraged to take on domestic roles as ‘good wives and mothers’, young women are also achieving a much more prominent public role as pop singers, models and actresses in the commercial media. This media is central to the expressions and performances of a new generation of urban middle class youth seeking greater participation in regional and global culture but also finding themselves negotiating a heightened nationalist emphasis on the maintenance of ‘tradition’. This paper explores representations of beauty in Lao business calendars, beauty pageants, magazines and the fledgling pop music industry and identifies a struggle for cultural authority underlying the beautiful surface.
