Template:Did you know nominations/Republican makeup: Difference between revisions

Republican makeup

Daniel Case (talk) 02:26, 10 September 2025 (UTC).

• @Daniel Case: Not a review, but I recommend resolving the {{excessive detail}} tag placed by @AirshipJungleman29:. Also, Leavitt was nominated for GA in April and there are GA and WIR events next month, so you may wish to have a ‘doubleable’ hook ready if it passes.–Launchballer 23:32, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

@Launchballer:Well, since they said they “don’t have time or energy to fix everything” after removing 6-7K or so, it doesn’t look like they have any interest in coming back. and, really, what’s the point of going to that length to fix a problem and only afterwards leaving a tag describing the problem? I sure wouldn’t do that sort of thing … it’s like adding a whole bunch of sources to an article largely lacking in them, and only then putting {{refimprove}} on the article or section. At the very least leave something on the talk page about some further changes that might be made on the talk page. As it is it’s very drive-by … why identify a problem if you’re not willing to fix it or even say how?

Given my experience reviewing ANEW reports, I am averse to removing such tags when I am the one who did the most work on the article, but here I am hard put to see any other alternative.

The date suggestion is interesting and, of course, amenable to me. Maybe, since Mar-a-Lago face and Donald Trump’s makeup are also up for DYK, we might be able to get a really big combination hook. Daniel Case (talk) 01:38, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Sounds more like a merge than a combination hook to me. Bremps… 17:09, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

@Bremps: I’ve thought about that … but I don’t think a merged article is eligible for DYK. And what might you call it? Cosmetic aesthetic of MAGA? I don’t think you could use “Trump” in the title because it would be about more than him or his administration. I think, honestly, if someone had created such an article people would just as readily be suggesting it be split up into something like what we have now. Daniel Case (talk) 19:09, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

The tag has been removed. Daniel Case (talk) 03:13, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

• Full review needed. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:01, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment: The only reason I haven’t reviewed this is because I disagree with the entire premise. “Republican makeup” has been a thing since the 2010s. I first saw it in Southern California Republican culture in 2013 or so. Now, I can’t speak to why my opinion differs from those in the article, but obviously this article is arguing that the phenomenon only reached peak meme in 2024, and of course that’s true, but the reality is that this whole idea is very old. Kimberly Guilfoyle has been sporting the look since maybe 2011? And thinking about that, my guess is that this whole thing originated with how Fox News hosts used makeup, as that would be the simplest explanation that lines up with the facts. Viriditas (talk) 01:17, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
    • I see that the article body mentions that this phenomenon is due to older styles of makeup use going back to the 1980s, while others have connected it to the beauty pageant aesthetic, one that Trump was particularly drawn to in the past. If the lead could make it clear that this “look” is not new, but rather the commentary on its use by Trump admin-associated woman is what is new (not in those words, but with that meaning), that would be great. In many ways, the look is consistent with conservatism, since it is reaching back to the 1980s and the women who use it refuse to use newer and more updated styles instead, in this example, as a way to kowtow and curry favor with Trump. I think the article is fairly well written, but seeing the absence of the historical context in the lead bothered me. Viriditas (talk) 22:32, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

If you can find more of that historical context that is reliably sourced, please share it. It wasn’t for lack of research that I didn’t include anything about it beyond what’s already there. Daniel Case (talk) 05:44, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Apologies if you misunderstood what I wrote: I see that the article body mentions that this phenomenon is due to older styles of makeup use. It’s already in the article, but not the lead. A few words would fit perfectly in the third paragraph. Your other sources say quite a bit more. For example, you linked to a source by Sam Escobar which indicates that the makeup is associated with 1) old makeup trends from yesteryear, 2) beauty pageants, and 3) stage performers.[1] Other sources that you use say that the look makes the women look older than their true age, which has got to be the strangest fashion style of all time. Most people wear makeup to look younger, not older. This added info would go well in the third paragraph before “an exaggerated aesthetic of gender performance that evokes drag queens”. Viriditas (talk) 10:28, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Reading this article it reads like an attack page, primarily serving to disparage women who support the Republican Party (United States).–RightCowLeftCoast (Moo) 06:24, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

I can’t speak to that directly, nor do I necessarily agree with it, but it is certainly one valid argument among many others. My personal issue with this article is the historical framing which feels completely off to me. This specific makeup trend in conservative circles is old, very old; it did not begin with the Trump admin in 2016 or in 2024, but the meme did emerge recently, which confuses the topic in many different ways. I believe it is a notable cultural topic when seen in that light, but not reduced to only the meme, which is admittedly pejorative as we all know. This is why I believe the historical framework needs to be expanded. I believe that the sources show that this makeup trend comes from conservative culture, some of which has roots in older makeup styles, the use of makeup by Fox News hosts, and some kind of intersectionality on top of that. My earliest memories of seeing this kind of thing is on late night television in the 1980s with people like Tammy Faye Messner becoming famous for the excessive makeup style. Later, in the 2000s, Fox News hosts became known for similar makeup. Quite interestingly, in 2012, people started writing about this style.[2][3] And by 2013, I began to see it more and more in the public. I think the only reason it became a popular meme now in the Trump era is because these people are now center stage and the public is forced to see them on the news whether they like it or not. And this is the Fox News presidency, complete with the religious influence, so the makeup connections from both eras are there. My complaint is that this article does not take a holistic, historical view on the entire cultural phenomenon, but instead focuses on a silly meme that only recently emerged. Viriditas (talk) 09:36, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

Because that was what turned up when I started researching it. What’s in there is as holistic and historical a view as I could find searching on “Republican makeup”, “right wing makeup”, “MAGA makeup” and “conservative girl makeup”. I have not seen any connection to Tammy Faye Bakker, and in any event that was seen at the time as specific to her and having no political connotations.

But thanks all the same for finding those older sources, although the Glamour one 404s. Daniel Case (talk) 18:05, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

The connection with Tammy Faye Bakker is through Christianity, conservatism and the culture of the Southern United States. This connection appears almost everywhere. Steven Saylor made this connection in 1991, noting that the women enmeshed in the culture of Texas used makeup in the same way as Bakker. The Atlantic article up above suggests that this same culture was also present at Fox News, both in how the men wanted the women to look and how the women used their approach to makeup within this culture. There’s really a lot written about this. Bakker was famous for saying that she never took her makeup off and that Jim had never seen her without makeup. While that might sound like just a offhand quip, there’s a lot going on here. IIRC, at the time Bakker was active, there were conservative business rules in place in corporations which required women employees to wear makeup in certain situations. I don’t recall when those rules were changed, but I remember one of the major airlines required it around 1989 or so. Also keep in mind that the airline industry was notorious for hiring women to entertain and appear attractive to men up until maybe 1970 or so. Makeup was required to be worn by women for the appreciation of men in this instance. Yes, it’s become very fashionable for anti-feminists to say “I wear makeup for me, not for other men”, but this is a newer development. This might seem like it has nothing to do with anything, but the reality is that it has everything to do with this subject. Men for a very long time required women to act and behave in a certain way, and their ability to go out into public without makeup was a sign of feminism and women’s liberation, in some respects. “Republican makeup” follows this long anti-feminist tradition, although it obviously morphed in several ways to accommodate Trumpism and the resurgence of women wearing extreme amounts of makeup in the tradition of conservative culture and its newer manifestations (for example, tradwife culture). I have no objection to a larger article on this subject but as it stands right now, the current article makes it seem like this whole thing is new when it isn’t. Viriditas (talk) 23:38, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

Again, blame my sources, not me. It is not the first time—and won’t be the last—that one of our articles is limited by what its sources say when a knowledgeable reader can see there should be more to it. From what you’ve written, I think the best thing you could do is gather up sources, write a scholarly article (or even a mainstream article) about how this isn’t as new as current coverage makes it seem (as is, indeed, true of so many things that are only new to people who haven’t lived long enough yet, which (granted) is sometimes most of us) and get it published in a reliable source so we can cite it and incorporate your research into the article. Otherwise it’s just, well, original research. Daniel Case (talk) 02:21, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

As I said in my first reply, some of the material I recommend adding already appears in the sources you used, but you didn’t frame it that way. Instead, you assumed that “Republican makeup” refers to “the way women who support or work for Donald Trump apply their cosmetics”. That is only one recent use of the term. This subject has been discussed many times before outside that context and both the lead and the article are framed in a way that ignores this overarching topic. Essentially, this is an example of recentism. Journalism, Gender and Power (2019) repeats what The Atlantic found above, noting how Fox News emphasizes what they call “Fox glam”: “Women in Fox’s largely conservative audience are less squeamish than progressive ones about exploiting their looks”. This is the larger phenomenon that I’ve been referring to, and it’s been under discussion for at least 15 years in this context, but also greatly predates it other contexts. For example, this came up before with the discussion about the objectification of Republican Sarah Palin. Heflick & Goldenberg 2011 noted that this subject had been studied in the 1980s and 1990s, with researchers finding “makeup usage leads men and women to rate women as less competent” and “evidence that women’s attractiveness and sexualization hurts them when they apply for, or obtain, high status jobs”. The researchers discovered that this kind of focus on Palin’s appearance (of which makeup was one factor) led to her dehumanization and sense of being unfit for the job of VP. This is not original research. It is part of the “cosmetics dehumanization hypothesis” that Republican makeup trends appear to use. Conservative Christian writer Georgi Boorman was discussing this in 2020.[4] Viriditas (talk) 03:09, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

“Instead, you assumed that ‘Republican makeup’ refers to ‘the way women who support or work for Donald Trump apply their cosmetics’.” The only thing you should be assuming is good faith. That was what I got out of the sources, as I said. Yes, some of them do mention the long-term trends here … but not to a very great degree, so of course I didn’t make that a prominent part of the article. I am happy to incorporate some of the sources you mentioned earlier and account for them in the article. But, you seem to be carrying on with some disappointment that this wasn’t the article you were hoping for it to be, so you keep making suggestions and statements that aren’t really supportable by any sources we can use that a reader of your commentary would assume you believe must be in the article.

To paraphrase another prominent Republican of years past, we write articles with the sources we have, not the sources we’d like to have.

• Merge to Mar-a-Lago face: Given the resistance to making this part of a larger topic on the aesthetic, I think it’s best to just merge whatever is salvageable here into a subsection of Mar-a-Lago face per this source. Per Wikipedia: “Mar-a-Lago face is a plastic surgery and fashion trend among American conservative and Republican women to modify their faces with ‘detectable’ surgery, excessive makeup, fake tans, and ‘fake eyelashes, with dark smokey eyes and full lips'”. It’s obvious that Mar-a-Lago face is the parent topic and at 5283 characters (796 words) is ripe for a merge of this article at 12022 characters (1904 words). Combining the two results in almost the perfect size and topic coverage. I can’t imagine any reason for two different articles on the same topic at this time. Viriditas (talk) 03:32, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Since when do we have this sort of discussion in the DYK template? Shouldn’t it be on the talk page? How about I make some of the changes you have suggested above, we get it on the Main Page, and then we discuss this merge which is obvious only to you. I for my part found very few sources connecting the two phenomena, or subordinating RM to MaLF. Yes, they’re related, but just because the MaLF article connects them in a comma-separated list does not make a case for writing separate articles … we let our sources do that, and IMO they haven’t. (Also, as I noted at the MaLF talk page, the fact that is described as a plastic surgery trend means that some men, like Matt Gaetz, have been discussed in that context, making the article’s lede erroneous).

Look, I can see you’re itching for us to have an article about the broader historical trend of something we could call, say, Antifeminism and appearance. And you are probably not wrong to want that. So it would probably be a better use of your time to research the sources such an article would need, some of which you have already mentioned, and draft that article. Daniel Case (talk) 01:21, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

on hold while a merge discussion is ongoing. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 00:23, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

• Given that the merge discussion will take this beyond two months, there does not appear to be a path forward for the nomination at this time. If the article survives its merge discussion, it can be renominated for DYK if it is brought to GA status. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:18, 5 November 2025 (UTC)
  • No, that’s not fair. That would allow any one editor to effectively filibuster any nomination of choice to death, because merge discussions regularly take a month or more. I’m not saying it’s never a good idea based on the circumstances, but just a merge discussion on its own shouldn’t be enough to close. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 15:03, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

+1 Thank you. Given that this nomination went utterly unreviewed for most of that two months until Viriditas decided to start this merge discussion, closing it on those grounds at this point would encourage exactly this sort of disingenuous behavior.

In the future we should consider tolling the two-month limit for any merge discussion to discourage this kind of behavior, as (I think) we currently do with AfDs. Daniel Case (talk) 16:50, 5 November 2025 (UTC)