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Negative effects of media on children and youth
Media influence on adolescents body identity
Media and girls self image
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Recommended: Negative effects of media on children and youth
Little girls or little women, the Disney Princess effect, Author Mary Finucane started to notice her three year old daughter stopped being a child, she no longer cared about running, playing, she only cared to dress up and was “waiting for her prince”. Finucane argues that due to the media little girls are growing up to fast. She uses logos, pathos, and ethos to illustrate the deterioration of youth in little girls today. This topic explores the incline of influences towards young girls by the media on how they perceive the modern “Hot Look”.
This article talks about the way media is changing little girls to soon. The author talks about how different TV shows in the media, and different advertisements or songs have changed and influenced children particularly young girls into becoming little women to soon. She brings up research she has done on this topic and also brings in personal experiences with her little girl as well.
In validating her argument that little girls are growing up to fast she uses logos by stating that she believes $4 billion Disney Empire is just a step closer to a path that is becoming a concern to parent toward their young daughters. She states that that Disney has created new and scarier challenges for mothers by self-objectifying, and cyber bullying and their body image. TV shows like “Hannah Montana and “High School Musical” have created a new idea of a female childhood. Other than just Disney she looks deeper into what else is making young girls grow up to fast. ...
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...of unhappiness. In her article she also uses the word objectifying to illustrate the concern that most young girls are being objectified. She creates the emotion of sadness and disgust. The thought of a young girl being objectified creates sadness in visualizing and thinking of it.
Finucane has a background in play therapy and has a young daughter. She has done many hours of research on this topic and has thousands of followers due to her opinion and argument on the subject.In the end girls will always be surrounding by the media and there is no way to stop from what they watch or see but parents can monitor it the best they can. Its hard not criticize the girl for obsessing over the media when parents are also looking at the iPhones 24/7
She defines objectification by simply meaning that women portraying their body parts, which I personally think that it’s a very swallow explanation. Objectification doesn’t mean that a person focuses on your body, but it means that a person is treating them simply as an object for sexual desire. The problem with pornography is that it defines women into an object for pleasure not just because of its sexuality. She went on to say that no one will get upset when women are presented as “brains” or as spiritual beings. I personally believe that her choice of
Media is a powerful agent in entertaining children. It also influences and teaches the youth of society the suitable and appropriate gender roles that they inevitably try to make sense of. The power of media is very influential especially in the minds of the youth. Disney movies target the youth and plant certain ideas and concepts about social culture into the vulnerable minds of children. Media uses gender to its advantage, just like Disney productions. Humorous caricatures reveal some harsh realities about the portrayal of Disney Princesses in many movies made by the Walt Disney Company. Disney mixes innocence with the ultimate form of fantasy to capture an audience. Predominantly, Disney helps highlight the gender roles by showing the audience simply what they want to see. In the attempt to stick to the norm and portray stereotypical female characters, Disney created Princesses. Presented as damsels in distress and inferior beings to men, Disney Princesses give children an inaccurate portrayal of gender roles at a young age. Through Disney’s social success and intriguing films, such as The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Beauty and the Beast, Disney Princess movies portray stereotypical representation of gender roles through the denigration of the female image, targeting and ruining the perception of youth today.
In this book, Peggy Orenstein explores the land of pink. She takes us on an adventurous trip to try and find out the truth about what society tells our young girls what they should be wearing, how they should be acting and most importantly looks are what matters. Orenstein herself is a mother of a preschool aged daughter so the topic of what influences young girls is of great importance to her. She struggles with making the correct decisions for her own daughter, Daisy, as she dives into the girlie-girl world, because as even she has found out, it is impossible to steer clear of it. She talks with historians, marketers, psychologists, neuroscientists, parents, and children themselves. She returns to the original fairy tales, seeks out girls’ virtual presence online, and ponders the meaning of child beauty pageants. In the process, she faces down her own confusion as a mother and woman about issues of how to raise a girl and teach her about her own femininity.
Signorelli, Ph.D., Nancy. A CONTENT ANALYSIS: Reflections of Girls in the Media A Study of Television Shows and Commercials, Movies, Music Videos, and Teen Magazine Articles and Ads. Kaiser Family Foundation and Children Now, Apr. 1997. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.
For starters, Disney princess movies display the image of extraordinary beautiful sexy girls as princesses. They have long hair, small waist, flawless skin, nice cloths and beautiful voices (England, Descartes, Collier-Meek, 2). Unsurprisingly, young Girls want to have the qualities of these fictitious characters. They define beauty as having the perfect body image, just as Disney princess movies have taught them. Moreover, the bad people or witches in these movies always seem to be ugly, fat, or basically unattractive. This changes young girls’ view of the society, leading them to develop low self-esteem if they don’t meet the princesses’ standard (Dundes, 8). Since, Disney features the male character (prince) to be romantically linked to the female character (princess), young girls who do not think that they have the image of a princess will get the impression that they cannot be loved by handsome wealthy men (England, Descartes, Collier-Meek, 3). Also, they will consider themselves to b...
A Study Conducted by the American Psychological Association Task Force concluded that sexualization occurs when a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics; a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy; a person is sexually objectified- that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making; and/or sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person. The APA Task Force reported many example of the sexualization of girls, such as toy manufactures duce dolls wearing black leather miniskirts, feather boas, and thigh-high boots and market them to 8- to 12-year-old girls. Clothing stores sell thongs sized for 7– to 10-year-old girls, some printed with slogans such as “eye candy” or “wink wink”; other thongs sized for women and late adolescent girls are imprinted with characters from Dr. Seuss and the Muppets. In the world of child beauty pageants, 5-year-old girls wear fake teeth, hair extensions, and makeup and are encouraged to “flirt” onstage by batting their long, false eyelashes. Journalists, child advocacy organizations, parents, and psychologists have become alarmed according to the APA Task Force, arguing that the sexualization of girls is a broad and increasing problem and is harmful to girls, and I for one agree with their proposition.
A little girl sits on the floor with her gaze fixed on the television screen in front of her, watching magical images dance before her eyes and catchy songs flow through her ears. Even though she had seen it at least twenty times before, she still loved The Little Mermaid just as much as she did the first time she watched it. As she watched it, she longed to be a beautiful mermaid with a curvy body and wonderful singing voice like Ariel. She longed to be saved by the handsome Prince Eric, and fall in love and live happily ever-after like Ariel did. In today’s society, women strive to achieve equality between the sexes. Despite the tremendous steps that have been taken towards reaching gender equality, mainstream media contradicts these accomplishments with stereotypes of women present in Walt Disney movies. These unrealistic stereotypes may be detrimental to children because they grow up with a distorted view of how men and women interact. Disney animated films assign gender roles to characters, and young children should not be exposed to inequality between genders because its effect on their view of what is right and wrong in society is harmful to their future.
Society cements certain roles for children based on gender, and these roles, recognized during infancy with the assistance of consumerism, rarely allow for openness of definition. A study conducted by Witt (1997) observed that parents often expect certain behaviors based on gender as soon as twenty-four hours after the birth of a child. The gender socialization of infants appears most noticeably by the age of eighteen months, when children display sex-stereotyped toy preferences (Caldera, Huston, & O’Brian 1989). This socialization proves extremely influential on later notions and conceptions of gender. Children understand gender in very simple ways, one way being the notion of gender permanence—if one is born a girl or a boy, they will stay that way for life (Kohlberg 1966). “According to theories of gender constancy, until they’re about 6 or 7, children don’t realize that the sex they were born with is immutable” (Orenstein 2006). The Walt Disney Corporation creates childhood for children worldwide. “Because Disney are such a large media corporation and their products are so ubiquitous and wide spread globally, Disney’s stories, the stories that Disney tell, will be the stories that will form and help form a child’s imaginary world, all over the world, and that’s an incredible amount of power, enormous amount of power” (Sun). Because of the portrayal of women in Disney films, specifically the Disney Princess films, associations of homemaker, innocence, and dependence are emphasized as feminine qualities for young children. Thus, children begin to consider such qualities normal and proceed to form conceptions of gender identity based off of the movies that portray the very specific and limiting views of women (...
Throughout the century, the ideal image of a woman has changed drastically, which can be directly attributed to the powerful persuasion of media. This ideal image has transformed from a voluptuous, size 14, 1950’s Marilyn Monroe to a 5’9, 100 pound, 1990’s Kate Moss. The most shocking aspect is specifically what young girls are now doing to achieve this “Kate Moss” image. Through the utilization of advertisements and stars on the big screen, this female portrayal directly targets the physical and mental well-being of females in cultures across the globe.
Aurora, Ariel, Cinderella and Snow White are all white, slender, skinny princesses, lacking diversity in physical appearance. They are overtly thin as their waists are freakishly tiny, as are their wrists, in contrast to their eyes which are huge. Disney did not create an animated women of colour lead until Aladdin’s Jasmine in 1992, so it is clear that the norm was white princesses back then. None the less, the stereotypical way the women are physically presented shows a clear distinction of what is considered to be beautiful - which is an unattainable idea. Cinderella’s step-sisters are drawn to be much larger than her, along with bigger noses and butts. The same is done in Sleeping Beauty as the three fairies are more plump, emphasising that they are not beautiful, but rather dimwitted. Good traits are often associated with skinny people whereas negative ones correlate with those who do not fit the standards. These values from as early as 1937 have not changed as in today’s society - photoshop culture is still prevalent, and the idea of needing to be skinny and airbrushed perfect is still maintained. Though the images from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty reflect the standards of their time, it does not mean that we have overcome these obstacles. These films point out that beauty is only limited to Europeans and that it is very eurocentric - an idea that is still present in today's society, as white-washing is extremely common. It teaches young girls - especially girls of colour, and overweight girls - that there is only one way of being beautiful, and if you do not fit these requirements, you are no longer pretty. It can tremendously harm the self-esteem of these impressionable girls because of the lack of representation in media, especially since these films are marketed for young
In this paper I will talk about some information that I have obtained from reading Mary Piphers, Reviving Ophelia, Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls and give my view on some of her main points and arguments. I also will discuss why I feel Mary Pipher’s views on the toxic influence of media are accurate, and that it does affect adolescent girls. This paper will also point out the importance of Mary Pipher’s studies on the problems that today’s female teens are facing and why I feel they are important and cannot be ignored.
It was not until 2000 that Disney decided to group Mulan, Belle, and the gang together under the brand Disney Princess. Princess merchandise, dolls, clothing, games, home décor, toy has become a $5.5 billion enterprise and Disney’s second-most-profitable franchise, after Mickey Mouse (Suddath).
Disney princesses are fun for all ages, but their target audience is young children and “as children grow and develop, they can be easily influenced by what they see and hear”. Therefore, what they see and hear in Disney movies leaves an impression on them. The first princess, Snow White, was created in a time where each gender and race had a specific role in society. Recently, many believe that Disney has come a long way in regards to gender and race since Snow White, as several multi-cultural protagonists have been introduced subsequently, and gender roles do not appear to be as stereotypical as they once were. However, many of the apparent innocent messages about race and gender in these movies, can be exposed as otherwise. Despite their mask of progression, Disney princesses still have the potential to corrupt the minds of young children through sexism and racism.
"Children are influenced by media–they learn by observing, imitating, and making behaviors their own" (APA, 2001, p.1224). Girl’s as young as 4-years sees Britney Spears music clip “Baby One More Time”, who at the time was a 17-year old girl/world pop icon at the time wearing a school uniform showing off her midriff, wearing a lot of makeup and a short skirt. Disney teen icons such as Miley Cyrus aka Hannah Montana taking personal photos of herself in “sexy” poses and sending it to her ‘older’ boyfriend and then having it all published all over the internet for the entire world to see. Boys also face sexualization too, as has been seen in Calvin Klein ads, where pubescent-looking boys pose provocatively with perfectly sculpted six-pack abs hawking teen fashion These pop culture celebrities both female and male are always in the media, for inappropriate actions and they’re meant to be role models for children. In fact most of these sexualized celebrities are still children themselves. The sad part is it’s not just sexualization being encouraged in the media other negative things such as violence, drug and alcohol use ...
Once given birth to a beautiful baby girl, often parents refer to her as their little princess; when having a newborn girl, that baby girl will often get all the attention from her surroundings, she will be showered in the most adorable dresses; cute shoes , baby clothes that say “princess” on it and either a bow or a bedazzled head band, perhaps a room that is nothing but pink, letters on her wall over looking her crib saying “Mommy’s little Princess”. There is nothing wrong with spoiling your baby girl. But as time goes her idea of her gender role begins to develop. Buying her princess toys, surrounding her with pink, and watching the Disney movies about how princesses are beautiful, always gets her prince charming, and lives an enchanted life for ever after, is a dangerous “reality” to create for young girls. Eventually, while growing up from child years to young adults, girls in this type of environment can develop a gender constructed identity that, they are superior and deserve an enchanted life. It’s a dangerous reality for these young girls because they will grow up to believe that, they’re entitled to the fairy tale life, having pure beauty , marry her dream man, conceive beautiful children and live happily ever after, but sometimes life is not a fairy tale and you don’t always end up getting what you want.