In contrast to the humbleness of some of the people who built this country from the ground up, today’s culture is beginning to become infatuated with their image. The everyday man or woman is constantly influenced by the media, from the celebrities touting the skills of their PR department and well-payed makeup artists, to the over-photoshopped models and bodybuilders jacked up on the latest batch of steroids from just below the border. This portrayal of an unobtainable image of “perfection” surrounds and integrates itself into everyday life. Each gender reacts differently to this kind of influence, not everyone is assimilated by this cultural challenge of bettering your image solely for those around to accept you, some even recognize it and try to bring it into the spotlight. People like Dr. Harrison Pope, who studies as regular people push themselves to reach basically impossible goals, or journalists like Sascha de Gersdorff of Graham Lawton, who cover the expensive and invasive procedures men and women are willing to receive in order to bypass the harder work necessary to acquire the image needed to satisfy themselves and the public.
While the fact that people want to better themselves in an age where obesity is at an all time high may not entirely be a bad thing, the idea that people would go to such extremes such as invasive surgery only to fix minor “imperfections” borders ridiculousness.Women especially seem to take this leap over men. “According to an ASAPS survey this year, 34 percent of women in the US and 14 percent of men were considering having cosmetic surgery” (Lawton, 293) This may seem appropriate, however, as women have been almost forced by the media to be compared to supermodel-type bodies which appear o...
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...photoshop, of course.) pushes the boundaries of what is becoming acceptable due to the media’s constant movement to create what should be considered “perfection.”
Regardless of what kind of attention is brought to this sometimes shocking alterations people are pursuing due to the media, the media will always control both major and minor aspects of daily life, including how people judge themselves and others. As long as no one is getting hurt, or hurting others, is it really that bad a thing that people want to feel good about themselves? Some may consider a few of these measures extreme, but if it betters a few, then who can blame them for taking these measures. Steroid use may be able to be used without ill side-effects, and surgery rarely hurts anything besides the recipients pocketbook. As one professional stated, “It can change lives,” (Lawton, 289) So why not?
From newspapers, magazines, television, movies, and the Internet, people are connected to the media in so many ways every day. Media plays a huge impact on daily life, telling the public what the newest trends are, events that are happening in day-to-day life, and scandalous stories of elite individuals involving politics, fame, and money. From young children to middle aged adults, people are constantly fixated on the images the media portrays for how they should look. “Body image is defined as “perceptions of and attitudes toward one’s own physical appearance” (Burlew & Shurts, 2013, p. 1). The media has an impact on how society and individuals view themselves and each other.
We hear sayings everyday such as “Looks don’t matter; beauty is only skin-deep”, yet we live in a decade that contradicts this very notion. If looks don’t matter, then why are so many women harming themselves because they are not satisfied with how they look? If looks don’t matter, then why is the media using airbrushing to hide any flaws that one has? This is because with the media establishing unattainable standards for body perfection, American Women have taken drastic measures to live up to these impractical societal expectations. “The ‘body image’ construct tends to comprise a mixture of self-perceptions, ideas and feelings about one’s physical attributes. It is linked to self-esteem and to the individual’s emotional stability” (Wykes 2). As portrayed throughout all aspects of our media, whether it is through the television, Internet, or social media, we are exploited to a look that we wish we could have; a toned body, long legs, and nicely delineated six-pack abs. Our society promotes a body image that is “beautiful” and a far cry from the average woman’s size 12, not 2. The effects are overwhelming and we need to make more suitable changes as a way to help women not feel the need to live up to these unrealistic standards that have been self-imposed throughout our society.
Like a blueprint or instruction manual, the objective of a rhetorical analysis is to dissect a written argument, identify its many parts, and explain how all of them come together to achieve a desired effect. Susan Bordo, a professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Kentucky, wrote “The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies”, published in 2003 in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Her essay examines how the media plays a pervasive role in how women view their bodies to the point where we live in an empire of images and there are no protective borders. In “The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies”, Bordo not only effectively incorporates numerous facts and statistics from her own research and the research of others; she also appeals to emotional realities of anxiety and inadequacy felt by women all over the world in regards to their body image. Ultimately, her intent is to critique the influence of the media on self-confidence and body image, and to remind her audience of the overt as well as subconscious messages they are receiving on a daily basis.
Beauty is often described as being in the eye of the beholder. However in modern western culture, the old adage really should be beauty is in the eye of the white makeup artist, hair stylist, photographer, photo shop editor, and advertiser. Beauty and body ideals are packaged and sold to the average American so that we can achieve vocational, financial, social, and recreational successes. Mass media and advertising has affected the way that women perceive and treat their own bodies as well as their self-concept. Women are constantly bombarded with unrealistic images and hold themselves to the impossible beauty standards. First, we will explore the role of media in the lives of women and then the biggest body image issue from a diversity stand point, media whitewashing.
According to Beverly Ballaro, the combination of two trends, the technology-enabled media saturation of the American public, and the promotion by this media of highly unattainable body types, is largely responsible for an epidemic of body image pathologies afflicting American girls and women, as well as an increasing number of boys and men. She also mentions that the media has given certain images for each gender. Generally, for females the body image is extremely thin, and there is an emphasis on large breasts and for males, tall, slender, muscular and toned. For both genders, the most valued and appreciated appearance i...
...ters of the covers of women’s magazines include at least one message about how to change a woman’s body image by cosmetic surgery. These articles about appearance are damaging because it leads to seriously unhealthy lifestyles that women and teenagers think they need to look beautiful. In addition to that, Teen Magazine published in 2003 an article saying that children from age 6-12 have been on a diet and are now considering plastic surgery. Cosmetic surgery sends the message that the prejudices some people have about appearance are valid, which is very wrong.
Cosmetic surgery is essentially not a bad thing. Some people suffer facial and body injuries or are born with a deformity which can only be corrected by plastic surgery. Cosmetic surgery can also be a life saver in cases of extreme obesity. However, some people-especially young females- are becoming too obsessed with their looks and body. The quest of finding the perfect body has led many to the operating table, opting for multiple cosmetic surgeries.
In society today, people look at beauty as a tall, skinny model or a tan, muscular man. It has brain washed the world to believe that in order to look beautiful, they must look like the images that are seen in the media. Today’s celebrities who are famous for their appearance also encourage the belief that thin is beautiful. These images are all over the media right now and have been for many years. With all of these images that are seen everywhere, a person feels obligated to look just like the people of Hollywood so they turn to cosmetic and/or weight loss surgery. Although cosmetic surgery can improve one’s self-image, it can also have a lot of disadvantages which can lead to many risks, even death.
Women have been facing crisis of body image since the dawn of man, for competition in breeding purposes, however women came under great scrutiny because of this. Often through history, they have been at the same level of livestock, treated poorly. Creating a rise in the early 1900’s to create the movement about pushing for the equality of women in the United States; it was after then when media first started adopting an ideal image of women in American culture, when marketing research found the use of images of ideal women in their campaigns made for higher sales.
The models and celebrities in the media that set the standard for what women should look like are thinner than 90-95 percent of the American female population (Seid p.6). This is an unrealistic portrayal of what the human body should look like when compared to most women’s genetic makeup. Women’s self-image, their social and economic success, and even their survival can still be determined largely by their beauty (Seid p.5). Men on the other hand seem to have it a little easier when it comes to looks. Their self-image is largely determined by what they accomplish in life and not by whether or not they meet the social standard for looks. Modern clothing and fashion require women to show off their bodies more in tight clothes and by showing more skin than in the past. According to Roberta Seid ...
The mass media over the years has had such a profound role in creating an image on how women should be viewed. From their appearance to what their duties are in everyday life, the media has made sure to depict unrealistic images of women. These images have caused not only the male public but women themselves to believe that they must attain a certain kind of body or occupation to fit into society. Women often feel obligated and pressured to comply to this praised image of perfection.
In this age, media is more pervasive than ever, with people constantly processing some form of entertainment, advertisement or information. In each of these outlets there exists an idealized standard of beauty, statistically shown to effect the consumer’s reflection of themselves. The common portrayal of women’s bodies in the media has shown to have a negative impact on women and girls. As the audience sees these images, an expectation is made of what is normal. This norm does not correspond to the realistic average of the audience. Failing to achieve this isolates the individual, and is particularly psychologically harmful to women. Though men are also shown to also be effected negatively by low self-esteem from the media, there remains a gap as the value of appearance is seen of greater significance to women, with a booming cosmetic industry, majority of the fashion world, and the marketing of diet products and programs specifically targeting women.
Graydon, Shari. “How the Media Keeps us Hung Up on Body Image.” Herizons Summer. 2008:
Men and women were not seen as equal human beings; instead it has been obvious that men were more likely to be on the upper hand. In 1987, it has been recorded that 2/3 of the people who were presented in the media were male. However, it is evident that the media usually presents and sexualizes women who are “young, fit and beautiful” hence probably creating self esteem issues more than confidence, especially in younger women who are religious towards the media’s expectations. This stereotype of a desired body shape only forces women to meet unattainable, perfect physical standards (Gill 2015).
Women and girls seem to be more affected by the mass media than do men and boys. Females frequently compare themselves to others, finding the negative rather than looking at the positive aspects of their own body. The media’s portrayal of the ideal body type impacts the female population far more than males, however, it is not only the mass media that affects women, but also influence of male population has on the female silhouette too.