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The problem with society beauty
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Beauty has become a word with a degrading value. Women in America are used by the word to create a new world of consumption. The beauty industry has been contradicting itself for years, sending mixed messages to women across the country. Western cultures have placed high-risk standards on the ideal image of beauty, creating unrealistic and unnecessary desires among women. Advertising attractiveness has become an outrageous competition within oneself and has destroyed the God-given self-purity that sets individuals apart; therefore the industry needs to create true, a more diverse image of beauty and stop limiting human elements. Many growing industries search for new ways to improve and change the way the operation works to ensure freshness that draws consumers in. One industry in particular that demands many psychologically and physically dangerous products is the beauty industry. Having an attractive appearance gives an individual a certain heir of respect in society despite your intellectual level. One may be increasingly prudent yet foster a pair of spectacles and an overly large nose and receive half the respect of a prom queen with a bossy attitude. Stereotypes are quoted daily, but the labels of appearance should not hinder ones ability to succeed or receive the decency of human respect. Women in particular are falling hostage to the idea of a flawless personage that is obtainable through countless and some harmful routines. Susie Orbach asserted in Market Principles Foster Dangerous Standards of Beauty, "Body hatred and body anxiety ... [are] the emotional fallout from the endeavors of [Western beauty] industries and the basis on which they make their extraordinary and obscene profits" (The Culture of Beauty). Women, mor... ... middle of paper ... ...o Be Such a Big Damn Deal?" Daily Beast. 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2014. National Public Radio."What Does 'American' Beauty Look Like?" Tell Me More 18 Sept. 2013. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2014. Orbach, Susie. "Market Principles Foster Dangerous Standards of Beauty." The Culture of Beauty. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Body Image in the Media: Using Education to Challenge Stereotypes." 2012. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2014. Rodenbough, Libby. "The Fashion Industry Promotes Eating Disorders." The Culture of Beauty. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Killer Fashion: An Industry in Denial." In These Times (28 Mar. 2011). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2014.
Beauty is a cruel mistress. Every day, Americans are bombarded by images of flawless women with perfect hair and smooth skin, tiny waists and generous busts. They are presented to us draped in designer clothing, looking sultry or perky or anywhere in between. And although the picture itself is alluring, the reality behind the visage is much more sinister. They are representations of beauty ideals, sirens that silently screech “this is what a woman is supposed to look like!” Through means of media distribution and physical alteration, technology has created unrealistic beauty ideals, resulting in distorted female body images.
Beauty is often described as being in the eye of the beholder. However in modern western culture, the old adage really should be beauty is in the eye of the white makeup artist, hair stylist, photographer, photo shop editor, and advertiser. Beauty and body ideals are packaged and sold to the average American so that we can achieve vocational, financial, social, and recreational successes. Mass media and advertising has affected the way that women perceive and treat their own bodies as well as their self-concept. Women are constantly bombarded with unrealistic images and hold themselves to the impossible beauty standards. First, we will explore the role of media in the lives of women and then the biggest body image issue from a diversity stand point, media whitewashing.
Today society has never been more aware of the impact the media has on what is considered to be an attractive person. Those who are most vulnerable by what they observe as the American standard of attractiveness and beauty are young females. Their quest to imitate such artificial images of beauty has challenged their health and their lives and has become the concern of many. As a result, advertisements used in the media are featuring more realistic looking people.
People are always complaining about how they aren’t as pretty as models on billboards, or how they aren’t as thin as that other girl. Why do we do this to ourselves? It’s benefitting absolutely nobody and it just makes us feel bad about ourselves. The answer is because society has engraved in our minds that we need to be someone we’re not in order to look beautiful. Throughout time, society has shaped our attitudes about appearances, making it perfectly normal and even encouraged, to be five feet ten inches and 95 pounds. People have felt trapped by this ideal. Society has made these beauty standards unattainable, therefore making it self defeating. This is evident in A Doll’s House, where the main character, Nora, feels trapped by Torvald and society’s standard of beauty. The ideal appearance that is prevalent in society is also apparent in the novel, The Samurai’s Garden, where Sachi is embarrassed of the condition of her skin due to leprosy and the stigmas associated with the disease. The burden of having to live up to society’s standard of beauty can affect one psychologically and emotionally, as portrayed in A Doll’s House and The Samurai’s Garden.
What is beauty? It seems like a simple enough question, yet it has an extremely elusive, ever-changing answer according to American society. What is “popular” or “stylish” at the moment could be completely obsolete the next. This question has plagued societies for ages and continues to motivate women all over the world go to drastic lengths in their search for beauty. As women in remote Asian villages search to attain beauty by stretching their necks with heavy metal coils (Anitei) and women in America lie in enclosed melanoma-inducing tunnels of light so they can emerge gloriously tanned (Is Indoor Tanning Safe?), God has another, far more fulfilling plan for true beauty. Beauty in American society is so fluid, elusive, and superficial that it doesn’t possibly equate to the plan that God has for women to view themselves. Real beauty comes from character, confidence, and an identity in Christ.
First, Kilbourne’s research should be praised tremendously for bringing to light the unhealthy impression of true beauty in today’s culture. Kilbourne challenges the audience to reconsider their viewpoints on advertising that is sublime with sexual language. The evolution of advertising and product placement has drastically changed the real meaning of being a woman. According to the movie, every American is exposed to hundreds and thousands of advertisements each day. Furthermore, the picture of an “ideal women” in magazines, commercials, and billboards are a product of numerous computer retouching and cosmetics. Media creates a false and unrealistic sense of how women should be viewing themselves. Instead of being praised for their femininity and prowess, women are turned into objects. This can be detrimental to a society filled with girls that are brainwashed to strive to achieve this unrealistic look of beauty.
.... "The Beauty Industry Promotes Unrealistic Beauty Standards." Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2007. Rpt. in The Culture of Beauty. Ed. Roman Espejo. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.
...r young, impressionable mind will have been exposed to more than 77,000 advertisements, according to an international study. Last week, it confirmed the link between the images of female perfection that dominate the media and increasing cases of low self-esteem among young women..” (Shields,2007). The propaganda techniques such as liking, sex appeal, and celebrity endorsements are used in advertisements constantly. Commercials on television, billboards, magazines, and various other advertisement types are everywhere you look in America, and sadly it has become very important for women of all ages to try to be perfect. We come into contact with these messages every day, and the beauty industry is getting bigger and bigger. Propaganda has molded our worldly perception of beauty and will only continue to hurt us and gain from our lack of self-esteem if we allow it to.
... San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Contemporary Issues Companion. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 19 Mar. 2012 "Preface to 'The Impact of Culture on Women's Health'." Women's Health. Ed. Christina Fisanik. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Contemporary Issues Companion. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 18 Mar. 2012. "Race and Ethnicity in Entertainment." Issues & Controversies On File: n. pag. Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 24 Aug. 2007. Web. 19 Mar. 2012. "The Beauty Industry Promotes Unrealistic Beauty Standards" by Stacy Malkan. The Culture of Beauty. Roman Espejo, Ed. Opposing Viewpoints® Series. Greenhaven Press, 2010. Stacy Malkan, Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2007. Copyright © 2007 by Stacy Malkan. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.
The concept of “beauty” is something that everyone feels, thinks, or wants, in order to fit society’s standards. In today’s society, we are often faced with the unrealistic ideals of what beauty is. Due to society’s constant portraying of unrealistic beauty ideals, this reinforces a negative influence upon women’s idea of beauty, resulting in a negative impact in their confidence, and self-esteem, which leads to others, specifically women to be manipulated by society’s corrupted outlook of what beauty is. To add onto this issue, we are constantly surrounded by sources of this negative influence in our everyday lives, including magazines, television, advertisements, and so on. However, women specifically, are more prone to be victims of this negative effect, thus will have more pressure upon themselves to match society’s idea of “beauty,” which includes unrealistic and sometimes unattainable beauty standards. Women especially, can sometimes be so deeply manipulated by society’s unrealistic ideals of what is beautiful, such that it’s possible that they don’t even realize it Furthermore, in order to do so, women often will receive negative impacts rather than positive impacts, such as in their confidence and self-esteem. The negative effects of society’s beauty ideals also lead women to have an overall corrupted idea of what is “beautiful.” Society creates unrealistic ideals of beauty towards women through the media by creating an unrealistic image of what women should look like to be considered beautiful. Men negatively affect women’s idea of beauty by using the unrealistic beauty standards exposed by society which further pressures women to try to fit society’s idea of what is beautiful. Beauty pageants negatively affect women’s ov...
Image is everything in today’s society as women are increasingly putting more emphasis on their appearance. Women today are growing more conscious of how others perceive their outward appearance. Even in a relatively Oriental society like Singapore, it does not come as a surprise to see women going to Botox clinics during lunchtime hours to receive their dosage of Botox, a chemical used to paralyse certain muscles to prevent wrinkles. Furthermore, beauty advertisements nowadays feature women models that are barely out of their teens. Even with older models, they are usually models featuring in slimming centres or skin improvement advertisements.
I would like to begin with the fact that women have always been known to dedicate their time to beauty. Those who are devoted to their appearance most often believe that beauty brings power, popularity, and success. Women believe this, because they grow up reading magazines that picture beautiful women in successful environments; not to mention they are popular models and world famous individuals. Beautiful women are no longer just a priority for most advertising, but we have become a walking target for the working class employers. It is documented that better-looking attorneys earn more than others after five years of practice, which was an effect that grew with experience (Biddle, 172). We cannot overlook the fact that it is always the most popular and most beautiful girl who becomes homecoming-queen or prom-queen. While these are possible positive effects of the "beauty myth," the negative results of female devotion to beauty undercut this value. These effects are that it costs a lot of money, it costs a lot of time, and in the long run, it costs a lot of pain.
The media has increasingly portrayed unrealistic views of women in the media. Whether it be on billboards or in commercials, it is almost always the same image; a beautiful woman with an amazing body and no visible flaws. In 2004, Dove challenged those advertisements and came up with the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. It is a world-wide marketing campaign with the goal of banishing the conventional standard of beauty, and defining what ‘real beauty’ is. Despite having good intentions, I believe Dove’s real purpose is to simply broaden the definition of real beauty while making a profit.
There are over seven billion people on earth and every single one looks different. No matter how much people say that being different is unique, they are wrong. Society has set a beauty standard, with the help of the media and celebrities, that makes people question their looks. This standard is just a definition of what society considers being “beautiful.” This idea is one that mostly everyone knows about and can relate to. No one on this planet is exactly the same, but people still feel the need to meet this standard. Everyone has two sides to them; there is the one that says “you are perfect just the way you are”, while the other side puts you down and you tell yourself “I have to change, I have to fit in.” There is always going to be that side that cares and the one that doesn’t.
The attempt is made with this advertisement to define beauty with images of starved and malnourished models which Estee Lauder claims to be the standard for beauty. Estee Lauder presents its view of beauty to the consumer as the defining truth. The issue with the advertisement is the acceptance by the consumer that the Estee Lauder definition of beauty is truthful and factual. The targeted audience for this advertisement is women of all ages. Beauty is something extremely important to women and is constantly being reinforced in the society of today.... ...