Blog Post #2: Beauty and Aesthetic in La Doña

In La Doña, beauty and aestheticism are crucial to the story. Lady Altagracia, also known as La Doña, is a ruthless business woman who is feared by many, however she does not dress like a man to intimidate the men in the business, like some women in America feel that they should. Instead, she channels her femininity and wears incredibly low cut, lacey, lingerie tops with lots of cleavage, usually with a fitted blazer or leather jacket. While she is astonishingly beautiful, she is also revered and maintains control over hundreds of men who work beneath her in her company. In one of the first scenes where she is introduced, she is seen walking through her construction site with men around her working on building a parking lot. As she is walking through and looking at the scene, a new construction worker stopped her and said she looked especially beautiful. She thanked him, asked if it was his first day, which it was, and then told him it would be his last and promptly fired him on the spot. Her character is an example of beauty but also purpose and power behind it.

As I continue watching the episodes I quickly became aware of the classic telenovela drama that riddles the plot line. Like many telenovelas, this one contains a love triangle, however, the distinguishing factor is the mother, La Doña, and her daughter, Monica, are lusting after the same man. There's also the classic paternity drama. In this case Monica believes one man to be her father when in reality she was fathered by a man who raped Lady Altagracia. The lecture about beauty and aesthetic in Venezuela really stuck with me and I found myself analyzing the women in the telenovela trying to figure out if they had plastic surgery or not. It was both interesting as well as sad and unnerving to hear that women all over the world suffer with the feeling that their natural bodies are not good enough or attractive enough. It makes me wonder what we can do, globally, to change these notions and if we will ever be able to impact such change as to reverse the damage that has already been done.