Free Write: Imperfection I believe in imperfection. You may be wondering how one comes to such an odd belief. But I believe in those things which make me stronger. I believe that as an imperfect being that to admit, act or pretend perfection is an anyway possible is an exercise in futility. I believe that man’s highest priority in life is to accept the imperfections, flaws, dents and scratches that have been programmed into his very being. If we were able to all be perfect in being, spirit and life, how boring the world would be. It is these imperfections that make us unique and different from the other seven billion people on Earth. I believe that to accept my imperfections makes me stronger and wiser when it comes to life’s challenges. …show more content…
Hollywood and the media portray image after image of perfectly sculptured stars and starlets that seemingly play all day and party every night with endless opportunity and riches without care or consequence. I am here to tell you that I believe that Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise or whoever it may be does not wake up each morning looking like they are ready for the red carpet. Brad Pitt may wake up looking a thousand times better than me in the mornings, hell, he might even grin at how handsome he is in his morning mirror. But he doesn’t want the public to see him when he wakes up. Why? Because he knows he isn’t as perfect as the magazines, movies and makeup make him seem. He sees the real him every morning. But you? You will never see the imperfections in his life, if he can help it. Why do you think that it’s headline news when a star gets a DUI or arrested? Simply because it is against the norm of what Hollywood portrays as a perfect life. “Why do these people get in trouble with such a perfect existence?” we ask ourselves. It is because nothing is perfect. It doesn’t end there. I believe that another example of this “perfect life belief´ is something seven hundred million of us use every day. Let us
On television, people always see beautiful actors and now with Youtube and Instagram, these effects are even more exaggerated. While watching these people our view of how we and others should act, dress and look is changed. Models not only wear the most expensive clothes and extreme amounts of makeup, but some companies go as far as to photoshop to the point where the models can not recognize themselves. This goes to show even though we push ourselves to look like these famous people they have the same struggles they may just arise in other places.
A celebrity is not a person known for his/her talent or achievement, but an individual recognized for his/her reputation created by the media. The phase of stardom is slippery, and media may choose to represent celebrities varying from exaggerated admiration to mockery. The three texts chosen, movie "Sunset Boulevard", feature article "Over the Hilton" and television show "Celebrity Uncensored Six" are texts presenting different perception of celebrities than their usual images - either corrupted by the encircling media, overloads oneself with self-indulgence, or just mocks celebrity in a broad spectrum. Such media items empower and impresses the audience by perceiving celebrities as people who pay the price of privacy to gain well knowness, signifying the vanity of stardom from the commonly accepted images.
If a teenager or pre-teen is focused on particular celebrities and their goal is too look like them, it is not difficult to slip into acting like them as well, or at least being influenced by their behavior and perceived attitudes. The media abounds with bad examples of celebrity behavior, from Justin Bibber driving recklessly to Miley Cyrus parading around scantily clothed, and although every celebrity is not a terrible role model, a disproportionate amount of them can be found to have shaky morals and seem to have let the attention that they receive affect their behavior. In addition, the perfect bodies that most of them display are not realistic and in some cases not even naturally attainable, thanks to the modern tools of plastic surgery, augmentations, liposuction, and other cosmetic surgeries. The media too contributes to the unreal portrayal of models and famous people by using airbrushing on pictures and other editing that lead regular people to compare their bodies to images that are not even humanly possible. The Barbie-like models that girls compare themselves to and the ripped and muscled men that boys compare their bodies to are often completely unnatural and the people who have somehow attained them are,
In the short book, Being Perfect by Anna Quindlen, Quindlen shares her wisdom of the term “perfection.” She discusses her personal experience of being “perfect” when she was younger and tries to persuade the readers that being “perfect” is not worth the hardships, but finding and expressing someone’s true personality and character is. Striving for “perfection” can fog people’s mind in acting contrary to their true selves. For example, people begin to expect the ultimate best out of one another and begin to lack the understanding of others. All people should learn to give up the unreachable goal of being flawless because everyone makes mistakes; it is the way in which people handle their mistakes that makes their true personality shine.
For many of us “regular folk”, we dream of visiting California and seeing celebrities or even being one. We see Hollywood as a heaven or even a holy bubble that we all want to be in. This is not true for all, but it is for most. We as a society do not generally think of the negative impacts Hollywood and fame has on an individual. Carrie Fisher, with her wit, humor, and extreme honesty, takes us inside her life and gives us her insight on Hollywood based her upbringing. After going through multiple triumphs, tragedies, and revelations Fisher writes about it all in her book, Wishful Drinking, along with three other novels she has written. Now you see why I used the term “regular folk,” because Fisher is the opposite of a “regular folk.” Even
Many people might say that stars are merely a product of the Hollywood system needing to make a profit; Hollywood manufactures a product and creates the demand for it. A star's image is processed through advertisements and promotions and has little to do with what the audience wants and needs from entertainment. There is a widespread mentality that any Average Joe can become a star with enough resources backing him up. Richard Dyer points out, however, that even movies full of stars fail, and stars can and do fall out of fashion (12). A star's economic worth is not invulnerable to audiences' opinions. The audience isn't so easily controlled.
In the year 1873, a speech was given which would change America and women’s rights forever. For one of the first times in history, a woman is the one standing up for political and social issues during the mid-1800’s. Susan B. Anthony was 52 years old when she was fined $100 for casting an illegal ballot during an 1872 presidential election which in turn Anthony refused to pay the fine and fought for the rights of women. Her persistence and eagerness could be heard and felt in the speeches she gave across the country. After her arrest, Anthony gave a speech which was titled "Is it a Crime for a Citizen of the U.S. to Vote?” which approached the inequality that surround the men and women of the United States before 1875. It was time for change and her perseverance came at the right moment. The mutual feeling other women clutched to helped propel her speech and her ideas into action which lead to their being a success in equality and the 19th amendment being added to the Constitution.
Today, our culture demands us to be perfect, thin, powerful, successful, smart, extraordinary, but when people begin to try achieving them, we start labeling them as narcissists. The problem is that it is impossible for anyone to please everyone. Brown defines narcissism as simply a “fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose” (22). Before giving out labels, it is wise to practice asking ourselves questions to clear the intentions and reasons of someone’s behavior. For example, teenagers posting pictures of themselves online to gain some attention reveals that the culture has taught them that they are as lovable as the number of likes and comments they get on social media. Negative feedback roots into negative thinking about vulnerability and causes them to shut themselves down and never show their real selves again. Encouraging others to believe that they are perfect as themselves, will plant a positive attitude in them and push them to pursue their goals and visions to fulfill their dream of a happy
With nearly global use of the television; it has become a preferred method with which to influence and regulate people’s thinking, creating an unreal and idealistic, hypothetical reality which people strive to emulate. This is accomplished through shows and movies; the majority of which emphasize a perfect world, entirely free of corruption and poverty; where everyone is physically attractive, emotionally stable, and economically wealthy; a distorted reflection of our own world. This leads real people to attempt to create this imaginary world, only to fail; thus generating in themselves a sense of unworthiness, which in turn prompts them to try harder, to stop being individuals and become uniform.
Stints as a child model and commercial actress brought Lohan into the spotlight at the age of three. As she transitioned from childhood to adulthood, it was becoming much more difficult to make such an appearance in the media that she had as a child. “The mass-media sets the public agenda; they are the ones who, as a result of their social event selection and focusing system, assign the priority of the discussion topics on the agenda” (Pachef, 2010). Thus, everything she had done in her personal life the media had documented, making sure the public masses were aware of Lohan. From her drug abuse to her nightlife stories, the media had it. When she even knew she had enough, the media couldn’t let go because they had absorbed so much popularity and power from the public masses from all the stories behind Lohan. Instead of focusing on her recovery, she wanted to feed the media through her actions because it was her only choice to steal the spotlight. The media as well had distorted the image of Lohan on and off the screen, whether it was shooting a new film to having lunch with her parents, by making her look like this “Scarlet A” individual whom society dislikes. The mass media establishes the topics that are worth being acknowledged, and the public is interested in the topics that circulate in the mass media.
Like any substantial boon, money has its many benefits, but on a psychological level the resulting disorder perfection anxiety takes a large toll. The lifestyle of the rich leads to limiting many people to being absurdly selective in many aspects of life as well as the added stress of maintaining the air of a sense of perfection that is believed by many as an unattainable quality. Those with great sums of money struggle to find purpose in their day to day lives, only adding to the initial ennui experienced through the disorder. A.A. Gill does not deny in the article the many splendours a life filled with endless riches may have, but instead also highlights that the idea of perfection is a perception, and can be easily perceived as enviable despite the many
The fame that comes from being a celebrity or entrepreneur does not render them immune from ridicule, speculations, loneliness, or exploit. Those chasing the American Dream may see this end goal of becoming wealthy enough for all of their problems to disappear, but this ...
There was once a time when there were more simplistic views on life; where truth and justice prevailed above all and the main concerns of society were much more primitive. However, those times have long vanished and have now been strategically replaced by the commodity that celebrity culture fully encompasses. Guy Debord writes in The Society of the Spectacle, that the “spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation amongst people, mediated by images” (Debord, 4). By this, he simply means that the spectacle is constructed by the daily images devised by celebrities, reality television, and pseudo-events. And those images have altered and strongly influenced the way people perceive themselves and others, as well as the social
We often think that our main goals are linked to perfection, however, we are unaware of the devastating effect this unattainable concept has on our outlook on life when we cannot achieve it. Though the textbook definition of perfection is, “the quality or condition of being perfect and without flaws”, it is a vice that harbors many doubts and insecurities and holds us back from things we want to do for fear of not being good. Perfection is a concept that cannot be achieved as it does not exist.
Movie stars. They are celebrated. They are perfect. They are larger than life. The ideas that we have formed in our minds centered on the stars that we idolize make these people seem inhuman. We know everything about them and we know nothing about them; it is this conflicting concept that leaves audiences thirsty for a drink of insight into the lifestyles of the icons that dominate movie theater screens across the nation. This fascination and desire for connection with celebrities whom we have never met stems from a concept elaborated on by Richard Dyer. He speculates about stardom in terms of appearances; those that are representations of reality, and those that are manufactured constructs. Stardom is a result of these appearances—we actually know nothing about them beyond what we see and hear from the information presented to us. The media’s construction of stars encourages us to question these appearances in terms of “really”—what is that actor really like (Dyer, 2)? This enduring query is what keeps audiences coming back for more, in an attempt to decipher which construction of a star is “real”. Is it the character he played in his most recent film? Is it the version of him that graced the latest tabloid cover? Is it a hidden self that we do not know about? Each of these varied and fluctuating presentations of stars that we are forced to analyze create different meanings and effects that frame audience’s opinions about a star and ignite cultural conversations.