mascara running down her little bambi eyes

lana, how i hate those guys

I bought two mascaras the other day, probably the only beauty product I hadn't owned, one called miss baby roll, the other titled bambi eyes. I wanted to gloss over this, two names formulated by loréal’s advertisement product and packaging team shouldn't have had such a hold on my thoughts, but it did. What was it about them that had struck my taste, why did I gravitate towards them?

They elucidate wide eyes, heavily applied mascara on a 50s starlet's lower lashes so her eyelashes flutter and her innocence pours onto television screens.

bambi. doe. baby doll. flutter. flirt. wide eyed. mystique. innocent. dreamer. enchant.

A lexical set or a collection of connotations, screams the english language student inside of me. The wide eyed girl has become a character trope, subtlely characterised by doe like nature of her eyes, and thus her character.

Emily, from Tim Burton's corpse bride is the stand out example of this to me, but it proves that the majority if not all of his female characters play on the wide eyed effect. For Emily, her heavy lashes remind us that she is a sad girl, suffered and pained, so her likeness is that of a person who has just cried, constantly tear stained by heartbreak. They reveal that despite the tragedy she has faced, she is still an innocent character, simply looking for love, oblivious to the fact that Victor wasn't hers, the blink of her eyes illuminating a lack of greater understanding. To further the point that it's so signaturely Tim Burton, Alice, from his rendition of Alice in Wonderland has doe eyes to hilight both her youth and inexperience of the world, that leads to her overwhelming curiousity and her fall into wonderland. The eyes of a Tim Burton woman reveal what he believes are her flaws, her weaknesses and her vulnerabilities, the things that lead her to make supposed mistakes.

Beyond a fictional landscape, to google bambi eyes, the most definitive photo paints that of Audrey Hepburn, who I personally adore. It plays into her typecast as the ever-innocent, ever-perfect character, and exaggerates her celebrity persona. Doe eyes are said to stare straight into the soul, to trigger empathy upon first glance.

Unfortunately, alike almost every standard of beauty, bambi eyes cater right into the male gaze. Innocence and 'youthful' connotations reflecting the oh so desirable construct of virginity and a vulnerability and sadness that reflects the easily manipulated, waiting to be shaped, the ‘doe-like’ nature of being prey. There’s an inescapability of the male gaze - it’s everywhere.

These eyes are a veil. They project a desired image, letting people hide behind them, like the velvet crimson curtains of a high class theatre.

I find I still strive to have doe eyes. I aspire to be the girl whose eyes look like they hold a natural fascination with the world, a million thoughts and emotions locked behind them.

-♡