Eduardo VelasquezThe devil works hard, but drag queens work harder. They look better too.
Drag queens and other kinds of celebrities have pushed the limits of what we think is acceptable for a man to wear, such as makeup. But, I think this may have had a minor negative effect on our thinking.
Historically makeup has been used by influential people, including men, to show off their higher class. It became more and more acceptable for anyone to wear makeup until it wasn’t.
I’m constantly hearing how a different male celebrity like Harry Styles is challenging our idea of what is socially acceptable for men. Although I agree that having men wearing makeup is essential, I also feel like it’s still only socially acceptable for celebrities and not the everyday man. The exclusivity isn’t good because it excludes the everyday man.
If men only ever see other men wearing makeup on stage, they won’t feel like men can wear it casually. The average person doesn’t have their life on display like these celebrities and can’t usually relate to them, so I don’t think these people aren’t the ones that we should look up to when we normalize things such as wearing makeup.
It also doesn’t help that beauty products are hardly ever marketed toward men. To truly normalize men regularly wearing makeup, we need to start advertising it to all sorts of people. For men to go out and buy it, we need to make it feel like these items are for them too.
I believe normalizing men wearing makeup lies with individual brands’ marketing. Men can get pimples and blemishes, so why not a line of concealer for us. I think it’s up to them to take the risk and come out with makeup lines directed at men.
