I do not mean to demean or denigrate the media at our present time, but it seems to me that news media, music, and film media are some of the most influential forces in our society and in many cases it denigrates me more than I could ever demean it. I have had lengthy discussions with one of my housemates about media's contemporary portrayal of females; of beautiful thin models and of a woman cooking in the kitchen or cleaning up after a man. Both image and the niche of females in society is defined and insinuated through modern media.
I recently came across the following video that I think really shows some of the issues women face from media in our society:
Dove Evolution
I think that this portrayal of women is a lie and that society as a whole has to realize that it is NOT healthy, NOT beautiful, and NOT realistic for girls to look like the models that we see in fashion magazines or in movies. Airbrushing and photo shop hide true beauty of what a real woman looks like. I hope that women everywhere will find confidence and happiness in how they look not because they are a certain size, but based on their individual worth and value.
I think in our society we generalize what men and women can do. Recent marketing statements for paper towels, show a man bringing in a big fish that he caught and the woman cleaning up after him. The stigma in our current society that women can only do a certain thing is extremely limiting and insulting.
I think that it is important that as ordinary people we do not let the media's negative representation of women make women doubt their natural beauty. Women need to recognize their inner strength and beauty.
I realize that men as well as women face this kind of negative stigma from the media, but I thought this was too big of an issue to treat separately. Please post your own opinions and observations about the media and how it has affected you!
One last video about this subject also comes from a Dove video. Dove has been running an ad campaign to combat negative media stigma and to help women focus on inner and true beauty. The women in this video are beautiful and it is amazing to see how they view themselves and how others view them.
Dove's real Beauty Campaign
I totally agree with your comments! And I have seen a lot of ways that media has negatively affected men, too - what about that trend of having really attractive, smart, skinny women married to fat, dumb men in sitcoms? That wasn't doing anyone any favors.
ReplyDeleteI think the Dove campaign is great, but I wish it would feature more people of color. Instead, it seems like it still maintains the ideal standard of Caucasian, thin women. I guess we can't win them all.
A lot of what you are talking about here is talked about by MissRepresentation, Beauty Redefined, and the Feminist Frequency, in case you wanted to look more into it.
Thank you so much! I agree that the Dove campaign has not really diversified and I hope that it does. I have watched MissRepresentation and a lot of my thoughts came from that. Thank you for sharing!
DeleteThat was something I noticed at the pageant, the girls were so uncomfortable and expressing how they weren't sure they looked good and yet, when the curtain lifted, all the audience saw SO many different beautiful women, all with different defining features, but all stunning!! Each was beautiful in her own way, in her own style, her own shape, etc. I was so sad that so many were so self conscious, b/c as you looked around, each one glowed!!
ReplyDeleteFor the same reason I have been glad to see movies like Pitch Perfect which have a curvy girl as the lead! However, the day needs to come where they don't have to crack jokes at her size, even if she is the one doing the jokes. It should be the natural, not the norm, to have curvy normal sized girls in Hollywood.
Way to go Paul!!! Miss you :-)
ReplyDeleteThis post really focused on the physical and body image aspects but it's so much more than that. It's the way that the media says to women in some instances you must work in order to be successful, and being a mother does not make you successful. Sometimes media tells them that they have to study certain things, like Women don't study engineering. I hope that all women just find their inner strength in whatever they do and don't worry about appeasing a society that will always demean them physically, mentally and socially.
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