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How Popular Culture Infliuences Ideas Of Beauty Amongst Women And Young Girls In America
The effects media has on body image
The effects media has on body image
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Beauty, Media and Culture How the popular culture influences ideas about beauty among either women, men, or both. Here in America, the conventional definition of beauty is what is perceptible in any form of our popular culture. This includes television, movies, music videos, billboards, fashion blogs, social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter), as well as anything ran on print and in mainstream media. The business strategy that is often used in these forms of media is that, women’s bodies are often used as a tool for advertising products that are entirely not related to the items in play, for instance, fancy cars, liquor, as well as guns (Kitch 56). Much as utilizing women’s bodies as a tool for selling the products that are totally unrelated …show more content…
For a long time, women have been depicted explicitly in media through art, music, and dances (Roelofs 60). The message that has been passed across is that of reducing the status of a woman in society to a sexual object. This reduces the self-esteem of women in society as they are regarded of low social status and immoral behavior in society. It is worth noting that the standard of beauty is not universal and furthermore it is dynamic. ‘Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’ summarizes this fact. The standards of true beauty vary from one culture to another. From a cross-cultural perspective, beauty is normally associated with all that is good, kind; moral and attractive (Wolf 12). Conversely, the ugly is linked with cruelty, evil, and …show more content…
Young are often most susceptible to this, and advertisers often take this weakness to their advantage and they are the most common target market for their business strategies. Media has a negative influence in shaping the ideas of culture and beauty, in that it exploits the naivety of men and women due to their lack of knowledge on the ideals of ‘true beauty’. They often capitalize on this lack of knowledge to get huge profits and create a name for their businesses. It is for this reason that parents need to assist their children from a tender age in understanding what true beauty is all about. The ideals of true beauty are often universal and vary from one culture to another. Values need to be instilled on the need for realizing one’s true beauty, which entails discovering one’s self-worth and they should be brought to the realization that beauty is innate and dynamic and it does not need huge investments to look like those celebrities. Moreover, it is imperative that men and women appreciate how they look and desist from being hog washed by the ‘realities’ that mass media often dupes them to
This is a stereotype, which has been engraved into heads of men, women, and children. By plastering the world with models who seem to have it the genetic jackpot, Dove set out to discredit this cultural cast created by our society. Body image, to some people, is the first part of a person they notice. A study conducted by Janowsky and Pruis compared body image between younger and older women. They found that although older women “may not feel the same societal pressure as younger women to be thin and beautiful…some feel that they need to make themselves look as young as possible” (225). Since women are being faced with pressure to conform in ways that seem almost impossible, Jeffers came to the conclusion “they should create advertising that challenges conventional stereotypes of beauty” (34) after conducting various interviews with feminist scholars. The stance of Figure 1’s model screams confident. She is a voluptuous, curvy and beautiful women standing nearly butt-naked in an ad, plastered on billboards across the globe. Ultimately, she is telling women and girls everywhere that if I can be confident in my body, so can you. Jessica Hopper reveals, “some feel that the ads still rely too heavily on using sex to sell” (1). However, I feel as if these are just criticisms from others who are bitter. With the model’s hands placed assertively placed on her hips, her smile lights up the whole ad. She completely breaks the stereotype that in order to
The concept of beauty is a subject society speaks on through many channels. Social media plays a tremendous role in how society measures beauty and how to achieve these impossible standards. People from all walks of life have become obsessed with the idea of beauty and achieving the highest level it. In many cases, those who do not meet societal views of what is “beautiful” can become very resentful to these predisposed notions of beauty. David Akst in his writing “What Meets the Eye”, is bitter toward women and their ongoing obsession with beauty.
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.
When discussing the definition of beauty in today’s society, thin, fair-skinned, and long-haired are all words that are agreeably in the top five adjectives used. These standards of beauty tend to be engraved in brains of children, teens, adults, Americans, Asians, Europeans, men, women, and etc. all day every day. These ideals are portrayed through television commercials, billboards, newspaper ads and all other forms of media, such as Disney channel programs. Behavioral norms are also a major topic depicted in Disney channel programs; these programs depict that certain races, social classes and genders behave in certain ways, some which are sometimes stereotypical. These ideals are targeted to children who are “reaching an age where they are developing an awareness of self and comparing that self to the ideals presented in the media” (Northup and Liebler 268). At what point do we question by whose standard is this normal? Are we supposed to continuously live in this box of subjectivity and suffer while trying to reach this “standard?” Is this standard really a standard or cultural norm? It is said that these depictions shape the behaviors and actions of children and affect their self-esteem and self-image, but that is not always true. Most children in today’s society are mature enough to differentiate between television and reality.
Magazines (Ads) and pratically all areas of the media focus on the idea of perfection and that without beauty you have nothing and you are nothing, making it the all time goal for everyone. However, the main target audience are women who want or feel the need to look like the women in media because those women look happy, are popular, and successful. Problem with this is this ideal goal is unrealistic and unreachable which puts a great un-needed strain. Advertisments think about every aspect the colors used, the people, the environment and the words even the tinest aspects are carefully planned to portray a wanted feeling or meaning to hit the target audience in order for them to buy the product. They aim at trying to convience the female population
“Victoria’s Secret Love my Body Campaign” (VS, 2010) emphasizing the vision of the pretty perfect woman. Both of these campaigns have a very similar point of view and focus on the creation of the gender appeal in woman bodies, but also both of these campaigns have a different idea on what the beauty of the woman represents and how the woman is represented in both campaigns. Comparing and contrasting both of these advertising campaigns relate to the topics of how we market the woman in first place, how both of these campaigns relate to the true and false vision of the real beauty and finally the impact that both of these advertising campaigns have on today’s woman society. The meaning of the beauty will always be defined by the confidence of the woman and the love that she has for herself. Dove and Victoria’s Secret made both of these campaigns “Love my Body” and “The Real Beauty” in order to show the beauty of the woman in different ways.
Wolf, Naomi, Ed. The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. Random House, 1991.Web. 28 March. 2014.
In this age, media is more pervasive than ever, with people constantly processing some form of entertainment, advertisement or information. In each of these outlets there exists an idealized standard of beauty, statistically shown to effect the consumer’s reflection of themselves. The common portrayal of women’s bodies in the media has shown to have a negative impact on women and girls. As the audience sees these images, an expectation is made of what is normal. This norm does not correspond to the realistic average of the audience. Failing to achieve this isolates the individual, and is particularly psychologically harmful to women. Though men are also shown to also be effected negatively by low self-esteem from the media, there remains a gap as the value of appearance is seen of greater significance to women, with a booming cosmetic industry, majority of the fashion world, and the marketing of diet products and programs specifically targeting women.
Magazines and advertisement companies create impossible beauty standards for women by physically enhancing and editing women’s bodies and then portraying these women as the ideal type of woman. The media also places a great emphasis on women’s physical appearance, teaching women and men that a women’s physical appearance is all that
We live in a society where the actual appearance of women is determined by people’s perception and idea of beauty one that is made available through advertisement and commercials, it is almost like women are being told what to look like to make them feel good about themselves, it seems women have been targeted as the focus of such subliminal attacks on self image. Conventional femininity in our generation has taken a whole new life of its own a life were more is more, one which portrays that nothing is good enough as opposed to what the older media and in ...
...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.
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.
The Effects of the Modeling Industry on American Women Beauty in the dictionary is defined as “the quality present in a person that gives intense pleasure” or as “[a] deep satisfaction to the mind or as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest” (Beauty). That definition of beauty allows one to be free of conceptualized thoughts; to be able to look deeper than the outer layer and truly take in the essence that is you. The media’s definition of beauty for a female is described as a woman with long beautiful hair, clear fair skin, light colored eyes, tall, and a skinny physique. Sadly, this is the definition of beauty is the one that holds the most power.
Throughout history there have been many claims about what is beautiful and what is not on the face and body. America’s idea of beauty in the past changed many times from the fragileness of the Steel-engraving lady to the voluptuousness of the Greek slave. The ideal beauty in America is not so different from the ideal beauty of cultures around the world and follows many of the traditions practiced throughout history. The widespread of advertisement and technology is something that’s said to be the contributing problem to the ideal women phenomenon, but I believe history and trend plays the bigger role.
From what we witness, being beautiful is only meaningful if a woman also has the capacity to be sexualized. As seen in advertisements, like Carl’s Jr., beautiful women will be used solely as decorative objects to the main product being sold (Hatch, 3/15/2018). This isn’t meant to empower women as sexual beings, but is done solely for the pleasure and enticement of the male audience. The patriarchy holds the power, which provides men with control over the general content shown in the media. Since they believe they hold the authority to objectify women in advertisements, and get satisfaction out of doing so, then they feel they can continue to objectify them.