THE WHITENESS OF THE WHITE FACE AND BLONDE HAIR

Abstract

This text aims to analyse the performance White Face And Blonde Hair (2012), by the multidisciplinary artist Renata Felinto (1978) from the perspective of the concept of whiteness (BENTO, 2002; FRANKENBERG, 2004; SCHUCMAN, 2012; CARDOSO, 2017). In the performance, the artist presents herself as a blonde, seductive and cheerful woman to question the white and western beauty standards that are imposed as “universal” and promoted as natural by mass culture. Felinto’s work exposes how the beauty standards established in Brazil are extremely Eurocentric and exclusive, structuring continuous processes of violence against women who are not white and who do not match the dominating white beauty standards propagated as beautiful, good and universal.