South of the River part 1

One of the major sources of confusion for me in life is people's obsession with naturally unobtainable physical traits.  For example, how is it that beauty and health has become associated with a shade of skin reminiscent of the Nullarbor Plain, contrasted with teeth whiter than Arctic ice.  I get that Australia is a fun loving sun filled country and enjoyment of outdoor life is part of our culture, but nobody's fooling anybody in winter.  Clearly you have not been sunbaking at the pool on the weekend nor have you been frolicking at the beach in your swimsuit.  Instead the only truth that can be ascertained is that you have paid upwards of fifty dollars to a stranger to spray your body with a synthetic substance designed to temporarily stain your skin the colour of a southern Italian fisherman because of your skin's natural inability to produce enough melanin to enable you to wear the 'skimpy little black number' that all the boys love.  And the teeth is another thing, our obsession with oral hygiene is frightening.  Sure a clean mouth is desirable and nobody wants to get hot and heavy with a mouth full of funk but seriously, there are shades of white seen on teeth south of the river that shouldn't even be used to paint walls in art galleries.  Advertising agencies clearly have a lot to answer for but advertising agencies don't have an agenda pushing this ideal without a product.  The beauty industry playing on people's insecurities is clearly to blame here.  Fair enough being tanned in Australia during winter isn't that much of a stretch but when beauty product manufacturers play on class ideals and cultural identity primarily in Asian countries clearly there is a bigger problem.  In India, beauty products contain whiteners as pale skin is associated with the higher castes and often with higher socio-economic status and wealth.  Helping to support this beauty myth and unobtainable physical traits only serves to provide these companies with a market for unnecessary products.  I won't pretend for a second that I haven't ever bought in to this before and I confess I once purchased a home teeth whitening kit and remember diligently sitting for half an hour being unable to speak because of the massive piece of plastic in my mouth coated in awful tasting jelly.  I guess we all buy into the beauty myth once in a while but when it starts getting associated with class and status we find ourselves on a slippery slope.  Are we to believe that because a person is tanned all year round and has enough money to visit the tanning salon weekly, they belong to a higher class than those who are pasty and pale during winter?  Are the tanned better people and worth more to society?  The purveyors of these products would happily have us believe that this is true by actively associating the 'tanned look' and 'white teeth' with good health and an active lifestyle.  I don't wish to generalise in this blog and try to claim North superiority because obviously that would be just as harmful a generalisation as I have just critiqued.   My intention is not to claim that this only exists south of the river however vintage clothes stores in Brunswick profiting from the sale of 'indie' cred to me is far less psychologically harmful than tanning salons and dentists using a bunch of toxic chemicals to alter the body's physiology in the name of fashion.