100 Years of Beauty Tackles A Century of Israel and Palestine
By Ani Bundel
In their latest installment of 100 Years of Beauty, CutVideo dares to tackle the third rail of foreign relations: the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.
When CutVideo originally did a lighthearted time laspe of the standards of American Beauty over the last century, they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. Over the next two years, they’ve quietly tackled the history of conflicts around the world through the lens of the beauty standards across the decades. They’ve retold the histories of war torn countries, reflected in how their women dressed.
But there’s one county they’ve avoided tackling up until now, known to some as the third rail of foreign politics: the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. And with the election results this year in the US, and the right wing factions in Israel emboldened again in their settlements, apparently they decided it was time to take it on.
For it, they cast two models, one Jewish, one Arab to represent the two sides.
Image via CutVideo
Note that in the early decades of the video, prior to World War II and the creation of Israel as a country, they first represent the area known as “The Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem” as it was called pre WWI and then “Mandatory Palestine” as it was referred to in the interwar period, with flashes of the the two model switching back and forth to remind us that though the country was under one rule, both sides have always been there.
Once we reach the 1940s, the screen splits and the tale of two countries begins.
The irony, of course, is how close the two looks are, especially in the beginning. The two of them could be sisters in the 1950s, with nearly identical hair and makeup. The 1960s and 70s see a dramatic split as the Palestinian style becomes far more conservative, and though the hijab falls out of fashion in the 1980s (only to return in the 90s) the makeup and hair is still highly conservative.
But by this decade, the looks have once again merged, and like in the 1950s, the two models could easily be mistaken for one or the other… except for the Palestinian flag drawn on the right hand model’s face. This is a deliberate choice, as Chris Chan explains in the “HIstory Behind The Looks” video.
Next: 100 Years of Beauty’s ’80s Retrospective is Here
As Chan says, he hopes we do not take this video as taking sides in the conflict as much as they are opening a discussion, and hoping to draw their viewers in to learn about an issue that’s been going on as long as anyone has been alive. If CutVideo does nothign else than push people to read more about it and learn, then this series will have done more than it probably ever dreamed.