Barbie and Cinderella as Mirrors and Models by Allison Hostetler

Allison Hostetler, author of Barbie and Cinderella as Mirrors and Models, connects with the issue on body image. While reading this article, I continuously shook my head up and down because I completely agreed with Allison. Many times through out the essay, the author made me stop and think about what it was she was saying. After acknowledging what the author was saying, I realized I could relate to many of the situations and apply them to different scenarios. Did Barbie dolls, brat dolls, or even movies play a role in our lives while growing up? When I look back to my childhood and look at how I think now, I think that they did play a role in how my friends and I thought at the time. Especially, today on how society looks at people and how many television shows have actors with “perfected” bodies.

The problem posed throughout the reading was how men and women are clearly not as equal in art. When reading about gender in one of the readings, I found it very interesting that there is a group named The Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls are women who hide their identity under masks that look like gorillas. Along with the masks that they wear, they also wear either black skirts or shorts and they wear heels. This allows everyone to recognize them as females. Another problem that stands out to me is the influence that big corporations have on art. Author of But is it Art?, discusses how corporations have started to contribute to art. In the reading, Freeland says, “there has been a shift in funding for the museums. And in 1992, a generous donation of about $700 million was given to museum to better advertise art and its culture” (102). While looking at both of these issues of gender and money, they do not relate much but some woul...

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...etal, or even country, many artists now have an ideal body, for viewers to look at (Body Image). The consequences of music videos and or media have similar effects on males as in females. Males may also experience low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. Agliata and Tantleff-Dunn state, “ 95% of college-aged men expressed dissatisfaction with some part of their bodies and 70% experienced a discrepancy between their current and ideal body shapes” (The Impact of Media Exposure on Males’ Body Image, 7). Music videos not only sell their bodies, but they sell their clothes and lifestyles. To sell their bodies, society wants artist to have their perception of an ideal body. The music industry is selling desire and dissatisfaction so that society is constantly buying the latest fashion and the newest cars so that individuals of society can keep up with the artist world.