Blurred Lines: The Glorification Of Rape

In November of 2014, Kim Kardashian posed for Paper Magazine baring her monstrous backside with a glass of champagne sitting on top causing the internet to so call “break.” Today, women are learning that is acceptable to over sexualize themselves at a young age because of media and its overall influence. What the celebrities and media promoting these actions do not realize is that it is forcing women to become an object. Also popular songs have promoted a rape culture aimed at women, and it does not always allow stars to use their platform for greater well-being.

Celebrities, you see them everywhere, always promoting the latest trends. Some of the current trends being twerking, butts, and very revealing outfits; these of course are what

huge stars like Nicki Minaj have branded themselves into. Many women with huge audiences have been using their bodies as a marketing tool for a numerous amount of years. These personalities portray an idea of what beauty is and it usually reflects to a younger audience, causing younger girls to over sexualize themselves at unnecessary age. The portrayal of beauty has forced girls to think they are not beautiful because they do not fit the fictional standard. Despite the fact Minaj has used her platform to support and promote education, others have not tried to help the common good.
Marilyn Monroe is very notable for using her body as a marketing tool; she became famous not only by her acting career, but her appealing body. She made the covers of magazines and was soon known internationally. How she became that famous is very simple, it is by what we are told is the standard of beauty by large agencies on the west coast. Although the standards have changed; as stated in this article from The Huffington Post, “In this day and age, hyper-sexualized beauty standards for women are set by the media: white, thin, long legs, toned abs, cleavage, and big hair. Sex sells” (Pinsky). The media's use women’s bodies to sell is as simple as it sounds. It was reported in 2012 that “15 percent of ads studied used sex as a selling point in 1983. That percentage grew to 27 percent in 2003” (Mulvey). Despite these statistics being over ten years old they have most likely grown higher in the recent year.
Most people who have a radio have heard Robin Thicke’s song, “Blurred Lines.” Many people found the song catchy and it quickly climbed the charts; although it promoted the glorification of rape.

A lot of media such as this song, are thrown into the world and are discretely promoting the welcome of rape. This hurts younger girls, because they feel that this is how you have to act to attract someone. Paula Pagila wrote a short essay about rape, saying, “The only solution to date rape is female self-awareness and self-control. A woman’s number-one line of defense against rape is herself” (Pagila 225). Preventing rape is something that young girls need know instead of focusing on teaching men to not do such actions.

Many people will lash back and say “why are we focusing on only women, men are also sexualized?” A great example of that would be when Zac Efron won best shirtless on-screen performance at the 2015 MTV Music Video Awards, when he was called to the stage he received a lot of pressure to remove his shirt. There has always been a pressure for men in Hollywood to have a perfect body, but many can still have a successful career without portraying the ideal standard of beauty. Women nonetheless, are not commonly successful if they are not defined beautiful by Hollywood’s

standards.
Media today has caused an extreme wave of acceptance of sexualization over young girls. As media becomes even more prominent in youth now, stars need to begin to understand the message their platform projects to an adolescent audience, how these platforms turn a woman into an object, and the promote of rape culture through their actions. If Kardashian has this immense platform that caused her to “break” the internet, why is she not promoting important issues such as education?