BEAUTY IN THE MEDIA

The aim of this blog is to focus on aspects of portraying beauty in the media; the negative and positive-if any. This topic is very important because the media actually manipulate us when telling us what is beautiful, how to perceive beauty and by continual portraying only the one type of a perfect woman make us consider it standard. Those women are all young, beautiful and thin. It looks like we are living in a perfect world full of perfect looking people. But how often do we actually meet those people in a real life? How often do we meet them on a street?

In fact, nobody can see what is actually behind it, behind this “media perfection.” Nobody realizes that many of those women may suffer from eating disorders and that the number of women who can really look like that is actually very small. Despite of all this, it does not stop women from trying to look the same and later ending with eating disorders or low self-esteem.

neděle 16. května 2010

Beauty in the Media

A never- ending chase to achieve impossible

We can see images of beautiful women everywhere. It starts with any advertisements in magazines, billboards, posters on streets, in subways up to commercials on TV or ads on the internet. Those women have one thing in common. They are all beautiful, young and have perfect bodies. Because of those portrayals of one single kind of a woman, people perceive them as kind of standards of beauty. Moreover, television and movies only support this perception of beauty. In all of the teenage shows as O.C. California, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, etc. are only beautiful and favorite in society people. Also, actresses in movies are still becoming taller, younger and slimmer. This kind of stereotyping has actually been realized since our childhoods when watching any of the Disney movies which portray not only princesses but all female characters as beautiful, happy and with Barbie-doll proportions. Plus, every women’s magazine advertise that if you want to be happy, successful, loved, have a perfect boyfriend, all is needed to do is to get slim and look perfect.

However, according to the article Body Image and Beauty[1] “the body image of beauty is constructed by the media, mainly to sell products related to the insecurity and unhappiness that it generates.” Another article says that “women- and their body parts- sell everything from food to cars.”[2]

“By presenting an ideal difficult to achieve and maintain, the cosmetic and diet product industries are assured of growth and profits. And it’s no accident that youth is increasingly promoted, along with thinness, as an essential criterion of beauty.“[3]

In fact there have always been beautiful women in advertisements and commercials; however, whereas twenty years ago, the average model weighed eight per cent less than the average woman, today’s models weigh 23 per cent less. To get this look and weigh is for a normal woman almost unachievable and only a very small number of women can actually reach these proportions. Therefore, for most of the women it represents a never ending chase after something that is even impossible to achieve. “Still, the number of real life women and girls who seek a similarly underweight body is epidemic, and they can suffer equally devastating health consequences. In 2006 it was estimated that up to 450, 000 Canadian women were affected by an eating disorder.“[4]

“In 2003, Teen magazine reported that 35 per cent of girls 6 to 12 years old have been on at least one diet, and that 50 to 70 per cent of normal weight girls believe they are overweight. Overall research indicates that 90% of women are dissatisfied with their appearance in some way“[5]

This issue involves also men, not only women. However, it seems like it does not have any serious impact on a man self esteem. Also, according to the statistics, women’s magazines include ten and a half times more advertisements and articles supporting weight loss than men’s magazines do. Moreover, most of the covers of women’s magazines contain at least one message concerning change of image, weight loss by a special diet or cosmetic surgery each month.

As it is said by Jean Kilbourne (an author and filmaker known for work on the image of women in advertising) the overwhelming presence of media images of painfully thin women means that real women’s bodies have become invisible in the mass media. The real tragedy, Kilbourne concludes, is that many women internalize these stereotypes, and judge themselves by the beauty industry's standards. Women learn to compare themselves to other women, and to compete with them for male attention. This focus on beauty and desirability effectively destroys any awareness and action that might help to change that climate."[6]

Watch:

Media’s affect on women:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_DWDbB00nk&feature=related

The Psychology of Beauty - Media affects body image:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnJQJFlyDGY

Vystavil v

4 komentáře:

  1. Anonymní21. května 2010 v 0:57

    Eva, I agree with you. This issue of unrealistic beauty standards in the media is not only an issue in the sphere of women, but of also in the sphere of young teenage girls.

    Part of the quote from Kilboure that you selected to end your essay with from reads, “Women learn to compare themselves to other women, and to compete with them for male attention”. This reminded me of an interview I read a few weeks back.

    Author of a new book, Girls on the Edge, Dr. Leonard Sax argues that young girls today act and appear to be confident, while actually they aren’t.

    In an interview with Dr. Sax about his new book, he explains that young girls today use social networking sites where they post photos of themselves, of course trying to make themselves more attractive, by employing Photoshop edits to help make them appear slimmer and blemish free.

    Apart from the anorexia and bulimia you mention, I think that thanks to new communication channels and technology, unrealistic images of beauty in the media are resulting the emergence of these Photoshoped beauty shots -- the war between teenage girls on social networks.

    These glamour shots, Dr. Sax suggests, are the girls’ attempts to sell themselves to the boys, who are browsing through profiles. In this way it’s the young teenage girls competing for the most attention online, but trying to look like the models they see in the media.
    This, in my opinion is not healthy.

    Not only do the unrealistic images of women’s beauty in the media help to produce the unhappiness, eating disorders and self-esteem issue you talked about, but it seems to indirectly promote the objectification of young girls – by the girls selling themselves through social networks.

    These young girls see the perfect skin, perfect bodies, and sexy poses of celebrities, and end up trying to mimic them. I think that these “images of beauty” create a kind of schema about women and beauty which is distorted. Perhaps for this reason, girls today are okay with putting up those kinds of photos on social networks, since they actively part take in such activities, looking for attention.

    What do you think?

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  2. Anonymní21. května 2010 v 1:04

    I forgot to leave you the link to Dr.Sax's interview.

    Here it is:

    http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/03/gender-expert-leonard-sax-on-the-empty-world-of-girls-impressing-each-other-with-sex-booze-and-facebook%E2%80%94while-parents-opt-out/

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  3. EvaS23. května 2010 v 10:47

    Tento komentář byl odstraněn autorem.

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  4. EvaS23. května 2010 v 10:50

    Thanks for an interesting comment. I find the interview with Dr. Sax you suggested very interesting. I think that the only reason why girls post their photoshoped pictures on the social networks where plenty of people can see them, is only their way to regain self esteem that is decreased. This is just another negative result of portraying perfect women in the media. Girls keep comparing themselves to them, want to look the same and when not achieving that makes them unhappy and unwanted and thus makes them look for the ways how to arouse admiration. That is why there should be much more ads like Dove does when portraying "normal" women- this, in my opinion, would help the whole situation.

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