We are a society that feeds off the image of perfection and the ideal self presented to us by the media; an unobtainable image that we continuously strive towards and are willing to do almost anything to achieve despite the fact many of us are aware of its impossibility. When Guy Debord, author of the philosophical and Marxist critical theory The Society of the Spectacle, states “The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images” (Society of the Spectacle), he is implying that the spectacle is not the images themselves, but how we have interpreted those images as an ideal self and use them to shape our perception of ourselves and other human beings. In his critical essay Empire of illusion: …show more content…
People are so obsessed with this image that they will often take drastic measures, such as, plastic surgery, liposuction, and extreme dieting to achieve an impossible standard of beauty. Hedges exemplifies this phenomena with the reality television show The Swan, a program where two “ugly ducklings” are given a professional plastic surgery team, dietician, physical trainer, and a therapist in order to compete for a chance to move on to the show’s final beauty pageant. The show wants us to believe that the competitors will have a much “better” life, but Hedges argues that the real message of the show is, “. . .once these women have been surgically ‘corrected’ to resemble mainstream celebrity beauty as closely as possible, their problems will be solved” (Hedges, 2009, 25). We have deceived ourselves into believing that if we do everything in our power to resemble celebrities then we can live in their fantasy reality of carefree and continuous happiness; our problems will miraculously vanish. The reality that the celebrities supposedly live in promotes an impossible ideal that we have gladly accepted and ultimately have begun to believe this is how reality should be. We have created the mindset that we should all aim to become celebrities and everything else should be second. In The Swan, the woman who does not win the …show more content…
They urge us toward a life of narcissistic self-absorption. They tell us that existence is to be centered on the practices and desires of the self rather than the common good” (Hedges, 2009, 33). Fame will not give us a life of eternal happiness as it promises. When we view the world as our audience we inadvertently stop working towards improving society as a whole and disembody ourselves from other people creating a culture of narcissists. The spectacle has deceived us to believing its warped reality by reflecting many problems the average person faces and elevating those problems to something high energy and enticing. Hedges exemplifies this observation by examining the background stories of the characters in World Wrestling Entertainment, “The narratives of emotional wreckage reflected in the wrestlers staged biographies mirror the emotional wreckage of the fans” (2009, 5). The characters on the show have many of the same problems that the spectators do, such as sibling rivalry, neglect, abuse, and other family issues, in order to establish a connection between the viewer and the characters. There is a self-identification between the fans and the fictional realities of the characters. We are able to relate to the characters and celebrities and as a result have begun to view ourselves as the characters ultimately shifting the focus of the world to our problems and ourselves. This has allowed us
In this image, a sewage worker is seen cleaning the drainage system, with his bear hands, without the use of either any equipment’s or protection. On the first glace, the image depicts the idea of health risk, because the man is exposed to such contaminants, which for him is work. He is looking up from a dirty drain, covered in filth, which shows that he is clearly used as the subject of this image, whom we are engaged to more as he is making eye contact with its viewers. This picture only includes one person into the frame, as the other man’s face isn’t available to see in this picture, which is man that is holding the bucket. Holding a bucket either emphasise the idea that he is helping the sewage worker, either to get the dirt out or to put the dirt in the drainage system.
Reality based television has a broad landscape ranging from competitive game-like shows to programs following the daily lives of a group of people. Every major network now has some form of reality programming because the genre’s shows are high in viewership and require low costs for production. The genre is appealing to viewers because it provides them with a first-hand look into the lives of everyday people, which allows them to observe social behavior that helps them determine what is appropriate or not (Tyree, 2011, p. 397). Since the majority of modern reality stars start out as unknowns, frequent viewers of reality programming believed that fame is obtainable if they appear on a popular show (Mendible, 2004). According to Mendible’s evaluation of the genre in the article Humiliation, Subjectivity, and Reality TV, people enjoy reality programs beca...
In every magazine and on every page there is another source of depression, another reason to skip a meal or two or a reason to be self-conscious. In present society people are overly focused and determined on the perfect body that both the fashion and advertising industry portray and promote. Through diction, pictures and celebrities presented they are trying to convey a message to their viewers that is “suppose” to be used as a source of motivation and determination. The message they are truly conveying is self-conscious thoughts, depression, and the promotion of eating disorders. It is estimated that millions of people struggle with depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem; concentrated on dissatisfaction with their body image (Ballaro). The advertisement and fashion industry are conveying a message that creates an internal battle for their viewers, though they should be creating a fire in their viewers that provides motivation to be healthier, take better care of themselves and a source of inspiration for style.
.... "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.
In her essay “Seeing”, Annie Dillard focuses on showing how different people have different perceptions. Dillard gives multiple examples to support her main idea, which is that preconceived and inherited notions influence our perceptions. Dillard discusses the different ways of seeing, how people with different backgrounds have different experiences with seeing, and many more. While Dillard’s idea about perceptions is definitely relevant and accurate, but are certainly not complete as there are multiple things that influence our perceptions.
We are prisoners to our perception. It is a common saying that things are not always as they seem .This philosophy is abundantly true when it comes to the subject of fame, celebrity, furtune and impact. The way we see things is responsible for the set up of our individual ideologies.”Evidence “by Kathryn Schultz refers to ideology as a “conceptual framework” (Schultz, page 373).We see fame as the greatest achievement that one could accomplish in their lifetime. We idolize and fantasize how the wealthy are free of the burdens of life and that they are faced with little to no misfortunes. As pointed out several times throughout this writing, this is a counterfactual way of looking at fame. Schulz’s essay further states that “to exist, to deal with reality, we need a conceptual framework; theories that tell us which questions to ask and which to not, where to look and where not to bother.”(Schulz, page 373).This quote relates to the subject matter because I also feel that individuals tend to overlook the cons of fame and focus too much of the glitz and glamour associated with fame.Basically,some people see what they want to see and ignore what they don't want to accept and
From social media, television, magazines and billboards, there is never a lot of diversification among the faces that grace the media on a daily basis. As a community, many people have become conditioned to believe that these women are what society has normalized as “beautiful.” Their body’s and faces are “perfect” and people have begun to try to emulate these women to become what society believes as “beautiful” too. According researchers at various universities, “Media also explicitly instruct how to attain thin bodies by dieting, exercising, and body contouring surgery, encouraging female consumers to believe that they can and should be thin (Yamamiya, 2004). Although, even thought this women think that by altering their bodies to societies standards, they are actually contributing to the fact that “an idealization of thinness is positively correlated with body image dissatisfaction” (Yamamiya, 2004). In this study, one hundred and twenty-three white women at Old Dominion University were exposed to media featuring women who were considered to be “beautiful.” They were first told to fill out Thompson’s questionnaire and then they the women were spilt into two groups where there were shown the pieces of media. The study should that individuals in the control group had higher internalization of the media than the individuals in the alternate group. Ultimately, researchers found that the only what to alter the way the way that
The media has one of the most influential impacts on what is seen as beauty in society (Bromley, 2012).Women spend thousands of dollars on products and cosmetics to achieve the unrealistic and unhealthy look of models on advertisements (Valenti, 2007). In most extreme cases, women who feel that their unhealthy weight goal is not achieved turn to extreme eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating (Cunning, 2011). However, despite the unrealistic frames of models on advertisements, women are still lured and pressured into the “perfect” image that is portrayed by the media using race, youth, and sexuality (Bromley, 2012).
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
Flipping through the pages of Vogue's latest edition, 23 year-old Susan seems quite upset. She struggles with the thought of lacking the perfect body and delicate features in order to be considered attractive. Surprisingly, Susan is not alone in this kind of an internal struggle. In contemporary society, every other woman aspires to have the lips of Angelina Jolie and the perfect jaw line of Keira Knightley. Society today looks down upon individuals that do not fit in, whether in terms of body shape or facial attractiveness. This forces them to consider the option of 'ordering beauty.' Since cosmetic surgery is no longer a social taboo in America given its widespread popularity, more people are promoting it which ultimately affects the rest of the world due to the unwavering influence of American culture. Cosmetic surgery should be deterred in the US because it promotes the idea of valuing appearance over ability, gives rise to unrealistic expectations, and brings with it high cost to society.
The celebrity gossip industry has affected our assumptions about entertainment. Usually, we assume that entertainment is just for fun, entertainment is only a reflection of our culture, and entertainment is a personal choice. Nowadays, entertainment is not just for fun. Celebrities entertain us in many ways, but sometimes we do not enjoy what they do yet we still watch them. For instance, many teen idols have had meltdowns. Although it is not fun to...
One question that viewers ask is, “Is Reality Television really real?” One can think so, but in the long run, it is really not. A great example of discovering this is World Wrestling Entertainment, also known as the WWE. From...
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.
Susan Bordo states in her article “Never Just Pictures”, that children grow up knowing that they can never be thin enough. They are thought that being fat is the worst thing ever. The ones responsible for this are the media, celebrities, models, and fashion designers. All of these factors play a big role on the development of the standard and how people view themselves. Everyone at one dreams about being the best they can in any aspect. But to achieve that most believe that one of the big factors is outer beauty. So people look at celebrities and fashion designers, and believe that to be accepted they have to look like them. That’s when they take drastic measures to change their appearance because they’ve been influenced by the Medias idea of “beautiful.” This feeling mostly happens in women but in recent years the gender gap has become smaller. Now men also feel the need to look good because of the media. On the TV, instead of having infomercials ...
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.