Cosmetics: Depicting False Femininity in Vogue

883 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: effects of media on culture and society

In today’s contemporary society, magazines, such as Vogue, depict women utilizing cosmetics to enhance their natural features in order to achieve the central goal of attractiveness. This idea of a consumerist society causes women to become objects of desire and victims of suppression, impacting their individual identities. The concept of consumerism allows Vogue to profit materially, targeting certain aspects of culture through three methodological tools of research, such as ethnography, textual, and political/economic analysis. Through the methodological tools of cultural research, I will analytically critique, how, through the use cosmetics in Vogue, the female gender is objectified and leads to profiting political, economic and social systems which distort the cultural identities of women.
In some societies, the identities of women can be shaped by cultural texts which are introduced by social structures, in a way that men dictate the limitation on the range of identities that a woman can hold. In impoverished countries, patriarchal societies believe cosmetics heightens the empowerment of a women over a man’s brain, by casting the spell of her beauty on them. Thus, this causes men to censor women from the practises of beauty, by restricting their connection to the world through the enforcement of fear, allowing men to play the role of the dominating gender in a relationship. Consequently, it can compel women to become cultural objects through the suppression of their identities. However, in the developed countries where women are acknowledged as equals, women cosmetically construct themselves to become culturally accepted as beautiful in their societies. I believe by applying cosmetics to their facial features, women introduc...

... middle of paper ...

...s looking good, leading them to feel the need to frequently buy make-up. Therefore, political, societal and economic interests promote the ideal beauty of women by marketing celebrities and leading them to shape the lives of women by influencing them to meet social expectations by hiding their natural identities.
Conclusively, I have analyzed how the portrayal of the female gender in certain cultural texts, such as Vogue, negatively impact and enforce unwanted change on femininity. Although cultural texts have negative influence on individuals in society, it tends to benefit the economic systems that are largely supported by political structures. Therefore, representation of women in media is significant in terms of how it infuses meaning into cultural texts and necessarily allows the society to elevate one interpretation of that cultural text over multiple others.

Show More
Related

  • response to Naomi Wolf

    1305 Words  | 3 Pages

    The idea that women are subjected to an unfair amount of pressure as a result of the fashion world and other media outlets is hardly new, but Naomi Wolf takes this claim to a new and absurd level. Her essay is as unorganized as it is impractical. Her ideas are presented in a smorgasbord of flawed logic. Particularly disturbing is what she calls the “beauty myth.” What I disagree with is the word myth. According to Wolf, women in magazines and advertisements have approximately 20% less body mass than that of the average woman, creating an unattainable standard. This fact in no way supports her claim of a “beauty myth.” The existence of a myth suggests something to be untrue in nature. Magazine companies and advertisement agencies are not in the business of showing an average woman. They are in the business of selling a product. Of course they are going to use beautiful people. These companies completely regard the fact that most women do not in fact look like this, but they know that their product would be less appealing if they displayed average or unattractive women. Therefore, they do not deserve scrutiny over the fact that they do not present a typical woman. They in fact do the same for men. Wolf says, “The beauty myth is not about women at all. It is about men’s institutions and institutional power” (page 485, first new paragraph). How does one begin to say how warped this impression is?

    Read More

  • The Negatve Effects of a Little Miss Monster

    1822 Words  | 4 Pages

    .... "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.

    Read More

  • Cover Girl Cosmetics

    1680 Words  | 4 Pages

    Cover Girl cosmetics have been the top-seller since 1961 and are still going strong. It is hard, with all the advanced lines of make-up for one product to go as far as Cover girl has, so how does Cover Girl cosmetics do it? A lot of Cover Girl’s strong, on going successes are due to changing the look of the product, exceptional promotions which the public can’t look over, giving a cosmetic appeal to both older and younger aged women and most importantly by using near perfect women and teens to model their products. Although it’s wonderful that Cover Girl has been and still is so successful, it has put a dentation in today’s society in what women’s appearance should and shouldn’t be. Women and young adolescence are confused of what their appearance should be. Cover Girl has many famous models; one inparticular is the famous country singer Faith Hill. Faith is tall, skinny, and flawless. When women see models like her doing the advertising for Cover Girl, they automatically feel that they should look the same. Later in this paper I will go into semiotics which derives from the Greek word semeion meaning sign, it basically describes how people interpret different signs, such as models, and how these signs might effect one’s life and self-esteem. Proctor & Gamble are the owners and starters of Cover Girl cosmetics. To keep up the success of Cover Girl they must keep on top of the advertising game to stay above the competitors. To do this they do many promotions, some include using famous singers, changing displays, giving away samples and one of the most important advertisement of all is the models Cover Girls incorporates in their ads. Cover Girls did one promotion with Target stores to promote their product. They used the famous group 98 Degrees to make a sweepstakes called, “Fall in Love with 98 Degrees Sweepstakes.” The grand prizewinner of this sweepstakes is an appearance in the new 98 Degrees music video. This advertising doesn’t just take place in the Target stores; it also takes place in Teen magazine, stickers on the new 98 Degrees CDs, a national radio campaign, and the national Teen People magazine. Because it’s teens that mainly listen to the music that 98 Degrees produces, it’s the teens that this particular promotion is focused on. I s...

    Read More

  • Symbolic Interactionism Theory: Analyzing Media And Pop Culture

    1158 Words  | 3 Pages

    As we have seen, the Women’s Health Magazine’s for July and October 2016 covers displays women that reflect the ideals of feminine beauty that base on the article “the beauty Industry’s Influence on women in society” by Ann Marie Britton, these pictures are unrealistic images of beauty. The skin of the model appears soft and perfect, the body type is thin but tone, and they have long hair posing with a sexual appearance and a smile, since women traditional gender role is to be emotional, sensitive and fragile they kept her soft appearances despite the women now in days in pop culture have gain power, also the clothing and accessories are important since they represent some gender stereotyping, on the covers the models’ are dress with a bathing suit and tiny clothes implying that women have to reflect a sexual personality and that they are just adornments, furthermore she is wearing makeup and her hair is down, all of theses are aspects that socie...

    Read More

  • Brave New World: The Culture Of Beauty

    1938 Words  | 4 Pages

    As a result of the wide variety of media that is in the world, it plays as one of the main factors to most of the body distortion and low self-esteems that is put on men and women. According to Lau, beauty or body perfection, “...is a social/cultural construct, and that advertising, lifestyle/entertainment magazines, movies, scripted and reality television, documentaries and even public service campaigns all play a role in normalising the unrealistic pursuit of body perfection” (Lau, Harris-Moore…). Because of the broad variety of media there is, each has a different perspective on what the ideal ‘real beauty’ is, this causes a lot of pressure to be put upon people on how they should truly appear. In addition, media is also setting the standards that people should start looking like celebrities. As stated by a plastic surgeon, Z. Paul Lorenc in The Culture of Beauty, is that “...one of several concerns is the more and more Americans are seeking plastic surgery because of the very high beauty bar set by celebrities” (Gerdes, The Culture of Beauty). Due to the media constantly flaunting how attractive celebrities are, it makes men and women feel as if they are not good enough and that they need to modify themselves to become socially acceptable in the eye of

    Read More

  • Marge Piercy’s Barbie Doll

    1437 Words  | 3 Pages

    The central message of this work is that society is obsessed with appearances. The point the author is trying to make is beauty should not be the most important trait of a person. In today’s society everything is based on looks, people are more concerned about a person’s outward appearance. People strive to attain a certain ideal of beauty currently prevalent in their culture. A beauty ideal is an overall "look" incorporating both physical features (e.g., "pouty" lips vs. thin lips, large breasts vs. small), and a variety of products, services, and activities. These can include clothing, cosmetics, hairstyling, tanning salons, leisure activities (e.g., aerobics, tennis, or weightlifting), and even plastic surgery (e.g., breast or lip implants or liposuction). Ideals of beauty often are summed up in a sort of cultural short-hand; one may talk about a "vamp," a "girl-next-door," or an "ice queen," or one may refer to specific women who have come to embody an ideal, such as Cher, Marilyn Monroe, or Prin-cess Di. ”(Englis 2).

    Read More

  • American Rape Culture Essay

    794 Words  | 2 Pages

    Open up any magazine and you will see the objectification of women. The female body is exploited by advertising, to make money for companies that sell not just a product, but a lifestyle to consumers. Advertisements with scantily clothed women, in sexualized positions, all objectify women in a sexual manner. Headless women, for example, make it easy to see them as only a body by erasing the individuality communicated through faces, eyes, and eye contact. Interchangeability is an advertising theme that reinforces the idea that women, like objects, are replaceable. But sexual objectification is only the tip of the iceberg. In society's narrative, subject and object status is heavily gendered, with men granted subject status most of the time, and women severely objectified. The difference between subject status and object status is simple; a subject is active, and an object is passive. These messages...

    Read More

  • Values of Miss America Pageant

    2474 Words  | 5 Pages

    It is shocking to see the digression in humanity’s morals and values over the past decade. As cliché as it sounds, the media is the center of it all. The way women are being represented, from our television sets, the radio, pornography and even art has pushed beauty to the top of the list of controversial and widely debated topics around the globe. “Whenever we walk down the street, watch TV, open a magazine or enter an art gallery, we are faced with images of femininity,” (Watson and Martin).

    Read More

  • Are Women Slaves to Fashion and Beauty?

    1707 Words  | 4 Pages

    I would like to begin with the fact that women have always been known to dedicate their time to beauty. Those who are devoted to their appearance most often believe that beauty brings power, popularity, and success. Women believe this, because they grow up reading magazines that picture beautiful women in successful environments; not to mention they are popular models and world famous individuals. Beautiful women are no longer just a priority for most advertising, but we have become a walking target for the working class employers. It is documented that better-looking attorneys earn more than others after five years of practice, which was an effect that grew with experience (Biddle, 172). We cannot overlook the fact that it is always the most popular and most beautiful girl who becomes homecoming-queen or prom-queen. While these are possible positive effects of the "beauty myth," the negative results of female devotion to beauty undercut this value. These effects are that it costs a lot of money, it costs a lot of time, and in the long run, it costs a lot of pain.

    Read More

  • The Media And Gender Stereotypes In The Media

    2330 Words  | 5 Pages

    The media, through its many outlets, has a lasting effect on the values and social structure evident in modern day society. Television, in particular, has the ability to influence the social structure of society with its subjective content. As Dwight E. Brooks and Lisa P. Hébert write in their article, “GENDER, RACE, AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION”, the basis of our accepted social identities is heavily controlled by the media we consume. One of the social identities that is heavily influenced is gender: Brooks and Hébert conclude, “While sex differences are rooted in biology, how we come to understand and perform gender is based on culture” (Brooks, Hébert 297). With gender being shaped so profusely by our culture, it is important to be aware of how social identities, such as gender, are being constructed in the media.

    Read More

  • The Portrayal of Women in Advertising

    2734 Words  | 6 Pages

    Women – beautiful, strong matriarchal forces that drive and define a portion of the society in which we live – are poised and confident individuals who embody the essence of determination, ambition, beauty, and character. Incomprehensible and extraordinary, women are persons who possess an immense amount of depth, culture, and sophistication. Society’s incapability of understanding the frame of mind and diversity that exists within the female population has created a need to condemn the method in which women think and feel, therefore causing the rise of “male-over-female” domination – sexism. Sexism is society’s most common form of discrimination; the need to have gender based separation reveals our culture’s reluctance to embrace new ideas, people, and concepts. This is common in various aspects of human life – jobs, households, sports, and the most widespread – the media. In the media, sexism is revealed through the various submissive, sometimes foolish, and powerless roles played by female models; because of these roles women have become overlooked, ignored, disregarded – easy to look at, but so hard to see.

    Read More

  • Beauty Essay

    678 Words  | 2 Pages

    The concept of “beauty” is something that everyone feels, thinks, or wants, in order to fit society’s standards. In today’s society, we are often faced with the unrealistic ideals of what beauty is. Due to society’s constant portraying of unrealistic beauty ideals, this reinforces a negative influence upon women’s idea of beauty, resulting in a negative impact in their confidence, and self-esteem, which leads to others, specifically women to be manipulated by society’s corrupted outlook of what beauty is. To add onto this issue, we are constantly surrounded by sources of this negative influence in our everyday lives, including magazines, television, advertisements, and so on. However, women specifically, are more prone to be victims of this negative effect, thus will have more pressure upon themselves to match society’s idea of “beauty,” which includes unrealistic and sometimes unattainable beauty standards. Women especially, can sometimes be so deeply manipulated by society’s unrealistic ideals of what is beautiful, such that it’s possible that they don’t even realize it Furthermore, in order to do so, women often will receive negative impacts rather than positive impacts, such as in their confidence and self-esteem. The negative effects of society’s beauty ideals also lead women to have an overall corrupted idea of what is “beautiful.” Society creates unrealistic ideals of beauty towards women through the media by creating an unrealistic image of what women should look like to be considered beautiful. Men negatively affect women’s idea of beauty by using the unrealistic beauty standards exposed by society which further pressures women to try to fit society’s idea of what is beautiful. Beauty pageants negatively affect women’s ov...

    Read More

  • What Is Beauty?

    756 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ibillion dollar industry of beauty. She argues that “Scientific studies have proven that human beings are hard-wired to respond more positively to beautiful people”. She also cites a recent report published by the University of Bristol which states Neanderthals wore “makeup” as long as 50,000 years ago, all in hopes of attracting a mate with the chance for successful breeding (Zilhao 2009).

    Read More

  • The Image of Women in Mass-Media

    1093 Words  | 3 Pages

    For example, In 2011, the Commission of the image of women in the media(Commission sur l’image des femmes dans les medias) in France, published an annual report. The commission was organized in 2009, in the social context that the women are not well represented in the media. The report tried to figure out the percentage of female ‘experts’ in the media including radio and TV. According to the report, 80% of the experts who appeared in the media were male. Considering the fact that the casting process is totally dependent on the decision of the production and their idea of ‘who is more likely to appear as serious and trustful person’, the result is quite shocking. It shows that the image of female in the media is rather a testifier or a victim, than an expert. The social position of women has been significantly improved in last hundred years, but how media treat them has not been pulled out from the traditional-patriarchal view point. This could be very dangerous because mass-media is accessible for people of all social classes and age groups, and for the most of t...

    Read More

  • Society Is the Problem: The Beauty Standard

    743 Words  | 2 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

More about Cosmetics: Depicting False Femininity in Vogue

Open Document