The Influence of Popular Culture on Society's Self-Perception
Popular culture has an undeniable influence on how society perceives itself. When examining mass culture, one must keep in mind the equilibrium between how much we, as a society, affect the way popular culture is constructed and to what extent popular culture influences the way we view ourselves and shapes our ideologies. An aspect of popular culture that may serve to greatly exemplify this theory of society as both the affecter and the affected is the genre of magazines targeted at young women. Though these publications are targeted as the representation of our society’s adolescent females, they actually have a great influence over the ways in which teens view and construct certain social ideologies. This essay will shed light on the influences these publications have in shaping, regulating, and defining young women’s perceptions of femininity, sexuality, and romance. Consequently, it will also reveal an irony in the fact that “women’s magazines”, written for (and mostly by) women actually mold their beliefs and actions into those that reinforce female subordination through the traditional standards of a patriarchal society.
For the purpose of analysis, I will focus on three publications for women, each with a slightly different audience according to the age and class brackets targeted and the subjects offered. In her analysis of one of Britain’s women’s magazines called Jackie, McRobbie identifies four codes that form the content of these publications: those of fashion and beauty, romance, personal and domestic life, and pop music (Christian-Smith,8). The magazines I will examine all exemplify the four factors of McRobbie’s codes.
The first publication is a magazine called Twist. From the content, one may infer that the main target of this magazine is a high school age bracket. The cover stories include “Make-him-Melt Prom Hair and Makeup”, “Is it Love or Lust”, “Real Guys Reveal What Their Mixed Messages Really Mean”, “New Zit Zappers”, and “Celeb’s Happiness Secrets”. Inside, the reader finds pop music icons, advice on how to act and look to find a member of the opposite sex, advertisements targeted at younger consumers of cheaper goods, and pictures of stereotypically attractive teenagers.
The second magazine I will be discussing is Complete Woman. This magazine is aimed at a ...
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...logies? A broader representation of other forms of society would be necessary to dissolve the stereotypes that mass culture has come to represent.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Twist Magazine, May 2000. Heinrich Bauer Publishing, L.P.
2. Complete Woman Magazine, June/July 2000. James L. Herlock, Publisher.
3. Marie Claire Magazine, May 2000. Hearst Communications.
4. Christian-Smith, Linda. Becoming a Woman Through Romance. Routledge, Inc. 1990.
5. Modleski, Tania. Feminism Without Women. Routledge, Inc. 1991.
6. Lewin, Ellen. “Writing Lesbian Ethnography” reprinted in Women Writing Culture. University of California Press. 1995.
7. Craik, Jennifer. “I Must Put My Face On” 1989. reprinted in Feminist Cultural Studies I. Edward Elgar Publishing. 1995
8. Winship, Janice. “Handling Sex” 1981. reprinted in Feminist Cultural Studies I. Edward Elgar Publishing. 1995
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10. Coward, Ruth. Female Desire. Palladin Books. 1984.
11. Schlesinger, Philip. “From Production to Propaganda?” reprinted in Culture and Power. Sage Publications. 1992
Before men’s magazines became a part of popular culture, this realm was dedicated to the female consumer, but in 1933 Esquire set out to change that stereotype. Kenon Breazeale’s purpose in writing ‘In Spire of Women’ is to make people understand that men’s magazines, specifically Esquire, promote a sexualized image of women solely for a man’s satisfaction. In doing so, Brezeale argues that Esquire contributed to the growth of the male consumer by making women an object of the male fetish that serves as only an annoyance to society. Breazeale is able to argue that Esquire is a rejection to the power of femininity by explaining how Esquire adapts to a consumer-based culture where it emphasizes the difference between masculinity and femininity and focuses on pin-ups of women.
Female beauty ideals are an overwhelming force in teen media. Approximately 37% of articles in leading magazines for teen girls emphasize a focus on physical appearance. This is none to surprising considering two of the top contenders in this media genre are Seventeen and Teen Vogue. CosmoGIRL and Elle Girl were among the ranks of popular teen magazines, but in recent years have become exclusively online publications. Add in a dash of publications Tiger Beat and Bop, and it becomes glaringly obvious that girls are charged with the prime directive of looking good to get the guy. The story becomes more disturbing when the actual audience, which includes girls at least as young as eleven years old, is considered. In a stage when girls are trying for the first time to establish their identities, top selling publications are telling them that their exteriors should be their primary concern of focus. Of course, this trend doesn’t stop with magazines. A study conducted in 1996 found a direct correlation between the “amount of time an adolescent watches soaps, movies and music videos” a...
Kinoshita begins the article by examining critical essays by William S. Woods, Charles Huchet and Michelle Freeman. Each critic has a different interpretation on what aspects of her writing make Marie de France a feminist writer. In his article, "Femininity in the Lais of Marie de France," Woods focuses on Marie's writing style and her "evident [femininity] in every aspect of the text," (qtd. in Kinoshita 263). Woods argues Marie de France's feminine voice is apparent in her writing style and is "emphasized by repetition, exaggeration, diminutives and excessively detailed descriptions," (Kinoshita 263). Kinoshita explains Woods' stereotypical views have a lot to do with the year in which the article was written, the 1950s.
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...ce in society. And the effects of the ideals behind these magazines are all the more powerful because of their subtlety." Women walk away from these magazines with an empty feeling and feelings of many inadequacies and they really don't know exactly why. The subtle undermining of women's intelligence and cause strips away their sense of worth ever so slowly and leaves them feeling depressed and in search of something that really can't exist together. Growing old while staying young takes many years of complete and internal happiness not many years of collagen injections and the added stress of having to stay unattainably perfect. While some consider these journalists for women's magazines talented writers, I consider them horrendous displays of talent in which they sell out the naturally beautiful women of the world for a quick buck and a popular magazine.
Much of society’s perception of women today, according to Kenon Breazeale in the piece, “In Spite of Women: Esquire Magazine and the Construction of the Male Consumer”, is based upon the attempts to construct women as consumers. Breazeale claims that much of society’s one-dimensional view of women has everything to do with how consumerism has been viewed primarily as a feminine attribute. Using an in-depth analysis of the early years of Esquire Magazine, Breazeale uses an academic, stoic tone in an effort to remain impartial, although it is rather apparent that she feels strongly against the magazine and all it stood for during this time period. Breazeale effectively convinces the audience that society’s perception of women today has been significantly swayed by their constant portrayal as consumers through an in-depth look at Esquire Magazine and how it not only portrayed women as extravagant, unintelligent spenders, but simply as objects of male desire.
Nussbaum, Felicity. “Risky Business: Feminism Now and Then.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 26.1 (Spring 2007): 81-86. JSTOR. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
In "Where the girls are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media," Susan Douglas analyses the effects of mass media on women of the nineteen fifties, and more importantly on the teenage girls of the baby boom era. Douglas explains why women have been torn in conflicting directions and are still struggling today to identify themselves and their roles. Douglas recounts and dissects the ambiguous messages imprinted on the feminine psyche via the media. Douglas maintains that feminism is a direct result of the realization that mass media is a deliberate and calculated aggression against women. While the media seemingly begins to acknowledge the power of women, it purposely sets out to redefine women and the qualities by which they should define themselves. The contradictory messages received by women leave women not only in a love/hate relationship with the media, but also in a love/hate relationship with themselves.
I can recall a time when the media was influencing my life and actions. The week after I graduated high school, my girlfriends and I took a trip to Cancun, Mexico, where the MTV beach house was located that summer. As I look back on the week of drunken partying and sexy guys, I can only wonder how I made it home alive. How could any young woman find this behavior acceptable? Every young woman there was flaunting their bodies to the young men around them. They were proud to be sexual objects. Where did they learn such debauchery? This is the kind of woman that is portrayed throughout MTV and various other aspects of the media. They have even coined the term “midriff”—the highly sexual character pitched at teenage girls that increasingly populates today’s television shows—in order to hook the teen customer. Teenage women increasingly look to the media to provide them with a ready-made identity predicated on today’s version of what’s “cool.” The media is always telling us that we are not thin enough, we’re not pretty enough, we don’t have the right friends, or we have the wrong friends… we’re losers unless we’re cool. We must follow their example and show as much skin as possible. The type of imagery depicted by MTV-- as well as people like Howard Stern, the famous “Girls Gone Wild” videos, and various Hip Hop songs—glorifies sex and the provocative woman.
Most photos and titles draw in the male gaze, with female bodies half-naked paired with ‘Ladies love this!’. Pairing these particular items together creates an atmosphere which reinforces male expectations and norms to their audience. GQ, while appearing as a harmless fashion magazine, sends out a number of subconscious messages to their viewers of what it means to be a well-respected, successful male in today’s world. Gentlemen Quarterly, like many other magazines, implements the gender binary into its readers through its advertisements and articles.
Hatton and Trautner (2011) found out that no matter in the past or at present, the sexualization of women is continuous. This conclusion is based on their research to the covers of Rolling Stone from 1960s to 2000s, nearly forty years. They summarize their results on a line graph (Fig 1), it directly reflects the percentage of sexualized images of women has a sharply increase, from 45 percent to 82 percent, on the contrary, the percentage of nonsexualized images of women falls from 55 percent to 17 percent. Rolling Stone rather than a men’s magazine, like Playboy, even though it is a magazine about American popular culture, the objectification of women is full of the covers of this magazine. Thus, it can be seen, the objectification of women is a historical problem.
The Effects of Popular Culture on Society Popular Culture is music, dance, theatre, film,T.V., poetry and Art which is enjoyed by a wide group of people. Some people would argue that popular culture in the 1960's cause harm. Other people however argued that other factors brought harm and change to society. Some people would argue that music would cause harm because of the lyrics in pop songs. Lyrics like 'Lets spend the night together' by The Rolling Stones, influenced young people to have casual sex.
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