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How media has affected body image over the years
Effects of media on perceptions of body image
How media has affected body image over the years
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Girls try to copy the clothes the celebrities wear because it is what’s considered cool. They wear makeup because if they don’t have the perfect complexion, the sexy eyes or the right lip color they are considered ugly. Society has taken away our say in what is beautiful and attractive. Society controls what to wear and how to look. The short story, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” by James Tiptree shows how society can dominate the lives of the individual. This story shows why following societies demands can be quite fatal. The pressure of trying to look like celebrities can cause someone to do drastic, unnecessary things to themselves just to please the social critics. In the story, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” the main character, Philadelphia Burke, was what society considered ugly. After a failed suicide attempt she becomes a candidate to become a celebrity. Philadelphia wanted to finally be what society thought as perfect. To become a celebrity Philadelphia must go through several modifications and electronic implants. Nobody really want to have these things done to them bu...
In the article, “The Fashion Industry: Free to Be an Individual” by Hanna Berry, Berry discusses how for decades women have been told to use certain products and that if they used those products they would be beautiful. Women over the years have believed this idea and would purchase items that promised to make them prettier, thinner, smarter and even more loved. However, in reality it was never what they wore on their bodies that helped them be any of those things; but what it did help with was to empower women to become fearless and bold by what they chose to wear on their bodies as a form of expression.
In a world where many are led to believe that they fall short of what society depicts as “perfect”, it is still true that everyone is beautiful in their own way. There are even more demands on girls now a days than there has ever been before. Some may think they need to fit in, so they become someone they are not or they begin to act like a totally different person. “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy, illustrates society’s high and unrealistic expectations on the physical appearance of women, while failing to see that a woman’s self-esteem is at risk of being diminished.
In today’s world, many people place a huge emphasis upon appearance, self-image and fitting in. Some are willing to go great lengths to gain a better sense of confidence, even though the outcome may come at a great cost. In the short story,“Anointed With Oils”. Alden Nowlan introduced Edith as a young, shack girl who tried so hard to extinguish her past to create a new life for herself. As an uneducated young lady, Edith found it very hard to land a respectable and organized job that she desired. She was embarrassed of many aspects of her life so she always tried to enhance her quality of life and the way she appeared. Edith believed that in order to be a star, she needed to be beautiful but she didn't see that in herself. Changing her appearance
The article “Is There Too Much Pressure on Girls To Have Perfect Bodies?” by Madi Jones illustrates that girls nowadays faced many pressure and expectation from society regarding to have perfect body image through media exposure, potrays through models on TV and peer influences in high school. The author using satiric tones to show that she disapproves about the high expectations from society that gives pressure to the teenage girls.
It is no surprise that many young females are turning to the knife when they are surrounded by images of young, beautiful models advertising everything from cars to beauty products reminding them every day of what they hate about themselves. Some women’s answer to this is to hide themselves away under baggy clothing but the majority cover themselves in make-up and fake tan and dye their hair to look like their favourite celebrity of the moment. However, recently many more women have tu...
.... "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.
“My lips and fingers were blue because I was so thin that my heart was struggling to pump blood around my body”, said teen model fashion Georgina (Carroll 1). The new skinny has become excessively scrawny. Is it definitely not normal for today’s society models to walk around with blue fingers starving themselves until their organs start failing! As for the model agencies, they couldn’t care less of the pressure and dangerous practices they put the models through in order for them to stay thin for the runway. Even fashion Designers continue to produce the smallest couture sample sizes and scout for the slimiest bodies to wear the designs not aware of the consequences of the pressure they not only put on models, but on the society girls to look like these starving models. And when the models continue to get offers from the most important fashion industries like Prada, it motivates them to keep doing what they are doing to stay in the shape they are in (Carroll 1). But little did the outside world know what this pressure had on the models and what they were doing to their bodies to peruse their modeling careers.
In reality, women have to live up to various standards. In Rosewarne’s writing, one standard that is brought to light is that whatever is portrayed on these advertisements promoting a precise body figure, hair color, skin color, etc. is what a women has to look like in order for men to find them pleasurable. Nonetheless, this mindset on young girls is truly damaging our youth into thinking that they have to look that way in order to feel admirable by society. A new report by the American Psychological Association says, “Advertising and media images that encourage girls to focus on looks and sexuality are harmful to their emotional and physical health” (Jayson). This is destructive to society because the media is molding social labels that can conclude in the development of unhealthy social and physical habits. Women and young girls intensify the representation of seeing their bodies as sexual objects from a young age. Rosewarne highlights this in her article when she says ”The basic idea of a pin-up is to provide an inexpensive, mass-produced image of a woman for a man 's viewing pleasure” (Rosewarne 317). Also stating that “women are ‘bodies’ rather than ‘somebodies” (Rosewarne 318). Furthermore, when she talks about the pinups in relation with the standards she says, “Pin-ups help define what men find attractive, in the
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,
Bennett, Jessica. "The Fashion Industry Promotes Eating Disorders." Eating Disorders. Ed. Roman Espejo. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Why Skinny Models Are Making Us Fat." Newsweek (8 Feb. 2007). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 20 May 2014.
To begin, social media has created unrealistic standards for young people, especially females. Being bombarded by pictures of females wearing bikinis or minimal clothing that exemplifies their “perfect” bodies, squatting an unimaginable amount of weight at a gym while being gawked at by the opposite sex or of supermodels posing with some of life’s most desirable things has created a standard that many young people feel they need to live up to. If this standard isn’t reached, then it is assumed that they themselves are not living up to the norms or the “standards” and then therefore, they are not beautiful. The article Culture, Beauty and Therapeutic Alliance discusses the way in which females are bombarded with media messages star...
To begin, how people view one's appearance can determine where they are ranked in the world. Trends start and end every season, and as soon as one person can no longer keep up with the trends, people start judging and unaccepting them. In the story “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, it
It’s no secret that some women believe fashion portrays who they are. Therefore follow every season’s new trend. This leads to spending money that they don’t have. Waller Lea, a journalist, suggest that “for some communities, purchasing knockoffs or generic products are frowned upon, forcing minorities to spend more money. Now businesses and companies are targeting minorities, causing more debt problems.” Addicted to retail or brainwashed? Opponents claim that fashion is simply a creative way to express themselves. There are others ways to express ourselves that are no based on our appearance. Through drawing, painting or through our thoughts and ideas. What happens when someone can’t afford expensive clothing or doesn’t have access to fashionable clothes? They are singled out and excluded from society for being different.
Nowadays, fashion industry is such a negative push on teenagers’ standard of beauty that it is now becoming an unsolved dilemma for our society.
Alexandra Scaturchio, in her article “Women in Media” (2008) describes the media’s idea of beauty as superficial. She supports her argument by placing two pictures side-by-side; a picture of a real, normal-looking woman and her picture after it has been severely digitally enhanced. Her purpose is to show young teenage girls that the models they envy for their looks are not real people, but computer designs. She also states, “the media truly distorts the truth and instills in women this false hope because…they will live their lives never truly attaining this ideal appearance”. Scaturchio wants her readers to realize the media’s distorting capabilities and feel beautiful about themselves, even with flaws.