Beauty Re-imagined

Still, the struggle doesn’t end here. Women also desire smooth, wrinkle-free skin, hairless faces, and ample busts. “Stencil” women are celebrities, models, actresses - women whose coveted looks are seen through discriminating TV screens, posters, and magazines. The steady demand for these forms of media is mainly due to women who are looking for body images to pattern from. These women are on the constant lookout in updating their appearance and considering the bulk of information that the media presents to them, the media is a source of considerable amount of physical and psychological stress.

Last week, it confirmed the link between the images of female perfection that dominate the media and increasing cases of low self-esteem among young women..” (Shields,2007). The propaganda techniques such as liking, sex appeal, and celebrity endorsements are used in advertisements constantly. Commercials on television, billboards, magazines, and various other advertisement types are everywhere you look in America, and sadly it has become very important for women of all ages to try to be perfect. We come into contact with these messages every day, and the beauty industry is getting bigger and bigger. Propaganda has molded our worldly perception of beauty and will only continue to hurt us and gain from our lack of self-esteem if we allow it to.

Models shown in all forms of popular media are often under what is considered healthy body weight, which sends a powerful message that women must sacrifice their health to be considered attractive by societal standards. When we look at women images, we will see they are thin, beautiful, sexy, and fashionable. They are different from average women. The women who see perfect women images every moment are not pleased with their appearance. In addition, they are losing their self-esteems, because they believe that they must look more beautiful, sexier, and more fashionable.

Today, mass media have defined beauty for an ideal woman, and established this ideology across the globe. This essay will argue the following (1) false perception of advertisements, (2) shadism, and (3) how females react to advertisements. (1): Advertisements gives females a false perception of beauty The media has promoted a dominant view of how people should perceive beauty, and what consists of perfection in beauty. According to Dr. Karin Jasper, the media have women encouraging them to be concerned with their outward appearance and how others perceive them by surrounding everyone with the ideal female beauty. (Jasper, 2000) Body image has become a particular concern for young girls and women, often females work diligently to attain the perfect body image advertised in mass media.

In today’s generation, girls are given high expectations which they are required to live up to. As shown by the media, if a girl is not thin, tall, or tan they are usually not considered to be beautiful. According to, Are Women Portrayed in the Media? It is stated, “The media sells an image of what they deem to be the ideal women; young, tall, thin with the perfect proportions, hair, skin, and teeth. Everywhere you turn we are bombarded with unattainable images which models are manipulated in some cases.” (StudyMode.com).

One such technique is the “beautiful person” technique, which uses a stunning model to present a product to the audience, who believes that they too, could look beautiful if they had that particular product. This is common in media, as companies use celebrity endorsements and models all of the time. However, society’s view of “beauty” is a small, and unrealistic goal, which many people- especially women, try to achieve. The models that are considered “perfect” and “the standard of beauty” are in reality, photoshopped, tweaked and made over until they transform into the unrealistic goals plastered across almost every media platform. However, women... ... middle of paper ... ... At some degree we have a responsibility to project the right image to a certain extent.

Physical appearance of the body has become a fundamental part of identity. To gain social acceptance in society, women feel pressured to meet the standards of what society recalls as beauty. Women have tried to get a liposuction or reconstruct their face to try and attain their significant other's attention and follow what the media depicts as appealing. By eliminating their own individuality, women try to attain this invalid image to feel more confident and feel more accepted. As society becomes more accepting to plastic/cosmetic surgery, women in society will no longer look unique and will become a master race that will eventually brainwash society as individuality will become extinct.

This documentary shows people will do whatever it takes to be models even if you... ... middle of paper ... ...re and every aspect of a woman’s face is the source to why people approve or deprecate of women. Media affects the way adolescent girls and adult women all around the world view themselves. This is why in today’s society our generation of women is so self-conscious about their physical looks, and this is affecting their health. There are many ways in which the media inspires women to mutilate and damage their bodies. Even world famous affluent people, and everyday people which are the people that represent what women should look akin to, go to the extreme to get that perfect because of the way the media makes people agonize them.

Women are bombarded with a constant stream of social networks and media paraphernalia telling them how to look and how to act. They then develop a socially based view on their appearance rather than an individually based one. While displaying some good qualities, media has an overall negative impact on women by creating problems such as a desire for conformity, eating disorders, and body dissatisfaction. Media has a heavy influence on women’s perception of themselves and conforming to the world has grown into a normal occurrence. Girls want to be deemed beautiful by society so badly that they will conform to any idea presented by the media (Piercy).

Body Image is one the topics that we talked about for ages. Girls and women have the biggest effect because they seem to be target no matter what and being analyze. We live in a world where no women can be happy with the way they look and show their natural beauty without changing themselves. Everyone has an opinion about the perfect body would be, but they would take away from a person individuality. In a modern popular culture, the media, society, race, sexuality and culture perpetuate image norms.