Teen movie aesthetics and the decline of political culture

What might be the best metaphor for the decay of American political culture in the 2010s and 2020s is the change of beauty ideals in pop culture. It‘s a reflection of how tasteful, refined elegance, natural beauty and smooth lines were replaced by something flashier, more extreme, supposedly more “authentic”, more daring, provocative and hyper-individualistic in a way that’s not even an expression of genuine individuality anymore.

To illustrate the point, picture the average female protagonist of a 2000s teen movie. She‘s likely to be relatively pale with light, straight hair, natural hair colors, no tattoos, no piercings, a thin nose, thin lips, no excessive curves, a soft facial structure without a pronounced chin or jawbones. She‘d be wearing something modest but classy, a good pair of jeans, an Abercrombie sweater, something preppy that an upper-middle class girl from the suburbs would wear and certainly no aggressive makeup.
All this suggests effortless beauty, class, modesty something less loud, noisy or shrill but still confident, smart and elegant.

Now straightforward to today, and the pop culture ideals have unmistakably changed. Pumped up lips, thick, bushy fluffy eyebrows, edgy and pronounced chins and jawbones, visible botox injections, rectangular faces, lots of curves, curly hair, less natural hair colors, tan, tattoos, piercings. Everything looks more artificial, made for the moment, not for eternity.

That’s where our political culture is today. Tasteless, unrefined, devoid of class, immodest, unrestrained, rude, loud, artificial and crass.

Elite aesthetics have been replaced by an embrace of trendy populism.