Growing up as a girl in America, I was constantly self-conscious and concerned with the way I looked. I remember even at the young age of 8 wanting to wear shirts two or three times my size in order to hide my curves and body shape. I felt safe all wrapped up in my protective shell of large clothing. I also only wore shorts that went right about my knees because I hated my “thicker” thighs. Every girl I came into contact with or any girl I passed as I walked down a hallway during school, I was immediately comparing her looks to mine and assessing her beauty. Every time I looked in a mirror I would only point out things I wanted to change and my eyes would immediately fixate on my blemishes. I sought after boy’s attention and constantly wanted …show more content…
Society is immersed in popular culture; music, television, art, film, books, fandoms, and fads surround us. Due to its constant presence in women’s lives, women are shown the ideal standard of beauty through multiple outlets of popular culture. This constant bombardment goes into their subconscious and sticks with them in their everyday lives. These standards of beauty pop up in every situation and cause women to compare themselves to other women. One example of popular culture that affects young girls as they are growing up and sticks with them into younger adulthood is the impressionability of Disney’s princesses. As Lamb and Brown put it, “Disney girls are women with Barbie doll bodies” (Hobbs & Rice, 336). Disney places these unrealistic standards of girlhood onto growing girls and show them how girls “should” act and look in order to be considered pretty, get a husband, and live a happy life. Through their research they found that “Disney girls are incomplete without a man, are innocent, have lovely voices, and can’t resist a mirror” (336-337). What Disney also does is deem what characteristics are “ugly,” “evil,” and “abnormal.” These “unattractive” Disney characters are found to be vengeful and cruel, while “female power is itself evil” (337). Disney teaches young girls that if you are “unattractive” or powerful, you will meet your demise, whereas if you are “pretty” or submissive, you will be awarded a handsome man. This type of imaging in popular culture perpetuates the unrealistic beauty standard for women and encourages them to pursue disorder eating in order to fit into society and feel attractive for
Media is infamous for having a tremendous effect on teenage girls. The mass media have long been criticized for presenting unrealistic appearance ideals that contribute to the development of negative body image for many women and girls (Harrison & Hefner, 2006). Whether it’s the influence on their choice of friends, school, or their self image, media has played an important role in affecting those decisions. A growing number of experimental studies have demonstrated a causal link between acute exposure to "thin-ideal" images (i.e., images of impossibly thin and attractive female beauty) and increased body dissatisfaction (Hargreaves & Tiggemann, 2003). It has recently been brought up that media influences girls in preadolescence, which is highly likely since most young girls idolize Barbie (Rintala & Mustajoki, 1992). “Were Barbie a flesh-and-blood woman, her waist would be 39% smaller than that of anorexic patients, and her body weight would be so low that she would not be able to menstruate” (Rintala & Mustajoki, 1992). Most young girls wish that they could look like Barbie when they grew up, but if they knew the reality of having her measurements their perceptions would probably change. Children frequently fantasize about who they will be, what they will do, and how they will look when they grow into adulthood.
In the American culture, women are encouraged to objectify each other and themselves through the affects of advertising raunch culture in the media, this contributes to stereotypes of gender roles. Raunch culture has a major impact on society and on people contributing to their development. Disney princesses and Paris Hilton both promote a set body image by creating a perfect standard of living that is very appealing to females. This body image leads to self-esteem issues and insecurities. Females shouldn’t be judged on the basis of their appearance but should know their self-worth.
The topic of over-generalizing characteristics of a man or woman has become a controversial debate. While both sides have valid points, Monika Bartyzel, a freelance writer who created Girls in Film, a weekly feature on “femme-centric film news and concerns” at theweek.com, argues in her gender stereotype article “Girls on Film: The Real Problem with the Disney Princess Brand” Disney has gone against their own perception of a princess, leaving young girls to believe they are only worth value if they are pink, sparkling and dependent on a man.
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...
In line with Towbin and her colleagues’ statement, looking thoroughly at the princesses, their physical appearances have the standardized beauty which applies to most if not all of the princesses. While it cannot be denied that Disney princess’ movies are pictured to please the eyes of the audience, this portrayal of woman is unrealistic and very idealistic. These distinct features as the cachet of beauty create the fallacy that people must own these distinct features to be called beautiful. The definition of beauty becomes monogamous and it fails to embrace the fact that women come from difference size and appearances. Furthermore, this standardized beauty of the princesses can represent the basic ideas in the society that women are expected to be alluring with sensual features and thin be worthy. As the effect, this representation of beauty will create a disorientation of body-image in the
As the modern world has changed, the idea of what is beautiful has changed as well. Since the middle of the last century, female adolescents have developed an obsession with their weight and how their body should look according to what is depicted in the media. As a result, this obsession has turned dangerous. Stress is placed on thinness to the point where looking normal is being underweight. Such a body image has become perfection. This is not only seen on television, in live action movies, and in animation, but in real life as well. For example, in the animated film, “Shrek”, Princess Fiona is an attractive slender woman during the day. However, at night she becomes an overweight, hideous ogre (Kovar, 2009). This indicates to young impressionable females that thin means beautiful and being overweight means not being attractive. Due to such images, an increase in body dissatisfaction and the development of eating disorders have put the health and lives of some young female teenagers in jeopardy (Van Vonderen, & Kinnally, 2012).
When discussing the definition of beauty in today’s society, thin, fair-skinned, and long-haired are all words that are agreeably in the top five adjectives used. These standards of beauty tend to be engraved in brains of children, teens, adults, Americans, Asians, Europeans, men, women, and etc. all day every day. These ideals are portrayed through television commercials, billboards, newspaper ads and all other forms of media, such as Disney channel programs. Behavioral norms are also a major topic depicted in Disney channel programs; these programs depict that certain races, social classes and genders behave in certain ways, some which are sometimes stereotypical. These ideals are targeted to children who are “reaching an age where they are developing an awareness of self and comparing that self to the ideals presented in the media” (Northup and Liebler 268). At what point do we question by whose standard is this normal? Are we supposed to continuously live in this box of subjectivity and suffer while trying to reach this “standard?” Is this standard really a standard or cultural norm? It is said that these depictions shape the behaviors and actions of children and affect their self-esteem and self-image, but that is not always true. Most children in today’s society are mature enough to differentiate between television and reality.
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 the early 1990’s, it was reported that eleven million women in the United States suffer from various eating disorders. At the same time, at least ninety percent of people struggling with eating disorders are female (Stephens). Many researchers tried to figure out why so many women today were suffering from these terrible conditions that destroy people from the inside out. After thorough amounts of research were done, it was concluded that today’s society generates intense amounts of pressure on women to fit an “ideal image” of the models they see in various ways. Thanks to false advertising, false images of women, and the changing “desires” of society, the Beauty Myth gives women an image of themselves that is physically impossible to achieve.
To begin, social media has created unrealistic standards for young people, especially females. Being bombarded by pictures of females wearing bikinis or minimal clothing that exemplifies their “perfect” bodies, squatting an unimaginable amount of weight at a gym while being gawked at by the opposite sex or of supermodels posing with some of life’s most desirable things has created a standard that many young people feel they need to live up to. If this standard isn’t reached, then it is assumed that they themselves are not living up to the norms or the “standards” and then therefore, they are not beautiful. The article Culture, Beauty and Therapeutic Alliance discusses the way in which females are bombarded with media messages star...
Giroux thinks that Disney movies have a negative impact on children for teaching them stereotypical ideas. One big problem seen in Disney Movies is false body image. Take “Sleeping Beauty” for example, with her stunning beauty, small waist and perfect hair, she is portraying that her look is the ideal and women should look like her. Young girls seeing these Disney Princesses might think that the only way they can look good is if they have a model’s physique, which is wrong because children shouldn’t be concerned about appearance and impressing others. But they are, and parents are seeing it.
The overwhelming idea of thinness is probably the most predominant and pressuring standard. Tiggeman, Marika writes, “This is not surprising when current societal standards for beauty inordinately emphasize the desirability of thinness, an ideal accepted by most women but impossible for many to achieve.” (1) In another study it is noted that unhealthy attitudes are the norm in term of female body image, “Widespread body dissatisfaction among women and girls, particularly with body shape and weight has been well documented in many studies, so much so that weight has been aptly described as ‘a normative discontent’”. (79) Particularly in adolescent and prepubescent girls are the effects of poor self-image jarring, as the increased level of dis...
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...
In society today, there is pressure from all sides to conform to a certain ideal of beauty. People are overwhelmed with the different types of images and media forms that are telling people how to act and what to look like. Media is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. It has the power to educate, affect social change, and much more, but if taken incorrectly people will take drastic lengths to change something about themselves. There have been many attempts to empower women through different types of media, but many have failed miserably. Over the last couple of years, Disney has struggled greatly with the representation of women throughout Princess movies because young girls are hounded with images of princesses,
In recent times, the world’s view on woman is very unhealthy. Women portrayed on magazines and TV shows are thin, beautiful, and are always covered in perfect makeup and styled hair. Runway models are known to have ribs showing and look like they’ve starved themselves for days just to hold their job and to look beautiful. Women activist are actively protesting the use of dieting models or photo shopping a women’s body so that it looks good for the viewer’s eye. But when we show the younger generation Disney princess movies, what it shows is that thin, young beautiful girls is what women should look like. If someone who isn’t exactly like that, is ultimately judged as being ugly. Disney has eroded the self-esteem and confidence of young females. “Today, the average American woman above the age of 20 is 5'4" tall and weighs 166 pounds, according to the CDC. By comparison, the average Canadian woman is the same height, but weighs 145 pounds, and the average British woman is shorter at 5'3" and weighs 155 pounds.” (Sun, Is it Time) As for Cinderella, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Elsa, or Rapunzel, their body types are so much different and hardly represent the average woman. These princesses have large heads with large ...