Preview

Beauty and the Media

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2799 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Beauty and the Media
Television is a rising source of entertainment and information. Many people use it as a fashion guide- a way to determine what is "cool" to do, or how one should look. Even seemingly innocent shows such as America's Top Model, Family Guy or One Tree Hill reflect a certain image of how a gendered individual should look or act. Yet media would not have such a huge impact on society if the people did not support it. Peers have a lot of influence over the people they come in contact with. The desire to be loved and accepted often outweighs one's sense of respect for themselves. In order to fit it, many people go to extreme lengths to make themselves fit the ideal image society places on a gendered individual. Media's influence on American society has lead to a generation ruled by peer pressure and a never-ending desire to be more beautiful by society's standards. This feeling of never being good enough leads to many problems emotionally and physically with a rising number of individuals. American society needs to recognize that uniqueness should be treasured, and stop pressuring everyone to conform to a very rigid and unrealistic body and gender image. American Media has had a rising say in the ideal image of a gendered individual for the past fifty years. Now it has developed into the only real place that American's look for their sense of the ideal image for a male/female. Fifty years ago, the ideal woman was slightly plump, big-breasted, and rosy. In fact, "the dominant ideal of female beauty was exemplified by Marilyn Monroe- hardly your androgynous, athletic, adolescent type. At the peak of her popularity, Monroe was often described as ‘femininity incarnate', ‘femaleness embodied'" (Susan Bordo 127). Marilyn Monroe was the 1950's ideal woman. She did not feel the need to maintain a child-like appearance or be overly athletic like we feel the need to be today. When she was most popular people took her to be their ideal image, not because she was the original

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The media plays a role in shaping, reinforcing and challenging our concepts of sex, gender, and sexuality by what they represent. According to (Schilt, 2012), “Individuals learn from family, peers, schools, and the media, what behavior is appropriate and inappropriate for their gender” (p. 467). For example, women search out occupations that strengthen "feminine” attributes, for example, care taking and nurturing (Schilt, 2012). I have learned that everyone does not respond to the media representations the same and how to understand…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unrealistic Body Image

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The media is responsible for creating ideals about beauty and body image, it can influence self esteem and acceptance, but can cause major harm. The media tends to make people strive to achieve an unrealistic image of perfection, a stereotype of beauty, and have led to a decline in self acceptance. Teenagers learn what society deems beautiful mainly from the media, they are overwhelmed with photos, magazines, television and movies on what is considered the ideal body (“Body Image”). According to the article, “Recent studies have found that by the time a woman is seventeen years old, she has received more than 250,000 commercial messages through the media” (“Body Image”). The majority of the media today presents the perfect body to the public,…

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Media has a big influence on society and the way media provides this information shapes what is the norm. The young women of today spend most of their free time on the Internet. Young women see what the media produces as the norm and convert it into their own lives. Therefore, mainstream media negatively influences women. According to this documentary, 53% of thirteen-year-old girls are displeased with their bodies. This can lead to eating disorders, cutting, or self harm. Women have a difficult time dealing with confidence when they are not allowed by society to feel powerful or influential in their own…

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The media puts an overwhelming amount of pressure onto females, in magazines and on television to look, act and dress a certain way essentially for the male gaze which Gauntlett discusses. In each teen magazine there are a number of advertisements about plastic surgery, dieting and fashion which could lead to depression, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts and negative labeling of other girls in society…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Society has complained about it and they have many concerns. Some black oriented television shows may serve a protective function of higher body satisfaction. Young men seem to be more negatively influenced by the the media than adolescent boys are affected.Now in society the media has took over teens widely spreaded to have a different mind function they’re basically in the fantasy world. Anorexia nervosa, body dysmorphia,bulimia nervosa and muscle dysmorphia are other factors of the body image. In conclusion the topic body image & the media is clearly explaining how the media has took over and impacted our society today. How many people are trying to look exactly like supermodels and celebrities. I think people should try being themselves because everyone is beautiful they way that they’re made to be and nothing shouldn't change their mindset among how they look at all. Self esteem also really plays a big part in how people are unhappy with their body. My point of view media has damaged individuals ,society as a whole and it’s an unhealthy promotion to many people in society today. There are many complaints to the way the media is impacting many people in modern day.Eating disorders, anxiety,…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    While women have made significant strides in the past decades, the culture at large continues to place a great emphasis on how women look. These beauty standards, largely proliferated through the media, have drastic impacts on young women and their body images. Arielle Cutler ’11, through a Levitt grant, spent the summer evaluating the efficacy of media literacy programs as a remedy to this vicious cycle.…

    • 741 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Fas 204 Research Paper

    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The media today continually promotes a specific type of “gender role” and behavior for both men and women. It influences and corrupts the minds of both men, women and especially young teens when doing so. With that said it’s definitely a big part of creating social norms as well. Think about it, there are three common different types of media: television, films, and advertisements, which are shown almost everywhere. Like I mentioned before, gender roles for an example exist only because society chooses to accept them for what they are. Viewers must be aware of what the media is trying to push on them, especially females. For example, most women when appearing with their male actors on screen constantly are portrayed in roles that are…

    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Body Image

    • 1843 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The Media is responsible for the negative effects on men and women who are influenced by unrealistic images, which include perfect skin, pulp lips, breasts, hips and a slim waist and for men idly, a lean and muscular physique. An individual is exposed to many different types of perfect images once this occurs, he/she starts comparing themselves with these images. In other words this comparison starts a self image process made up in their mind about themselves the “media images and self identity go together… media affects how one sees themselves and in some cases it affects women negatively” (Maggie 54). If girls don’t look similar to what’s posted in magazines and up on billboards they aren’t incredibly happy with their figure, because according to the media it’s not perfect. For this reason woman become depressed, stressed and unhappy.…

    • 1843 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although social media, and magazines have a great influence on society, television seems to be what influences girls the most. There are many movies and television series that either praise a certain type of woman, or diminish a certain type of woman. Movies like Precious seem to target women who are overweight and make it seem as though, if you are not skinny, you cannot have a good life. There are also several modeling shows on air that display nothing but skinny and tall women. Anyone outside of this category can easily feel un-pretty because they don’t see themselves on…

    • 845 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Media is everywhere; it is in classrooms, advertisements, movies, televisions, magazines, newspapers, the internet, the workplace, and in homes all over the country, and it continues to infuse the world and our lives. Media does not only sell tangible products, but also morals, values, concepts of life, and success, and to some extent normalcy (Killing Us Softly 3). Whether positive or negative, consciously or unconsciously, media affects each and every one of us every day. Young girls are being exposed to a supposed ‘ideal’ image of female beauty through the years of media exposure. For example, the notion that the most important thing to a young woman should be her physical…

    • 1759 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cited: Botta, Renee A. "Television Images and Adolescent Girls ' Body Image Disturbance." Journal of Communication 49 (Spring 1999): ISSN 00219916. Online. ProQuest. 16 Nov. 1999.…

    • 3061 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Child Beauty Pageants

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Sheldy Colene Pannell, a sociologist questions why parents would subject their children to gender socialization on TLC’s hit television series are specially criticized negatively influencing to children that their physical appearance will score them attention and win prizes and pageants.…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Black Men Stereotypes

    • 1625 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In reality TV and media, most women are portrayed at this and to even more extremes. The effects it has on women, especially young girls, as they grow up and feel as if they have to look and act like the women in the media, is an obvious issue. “As we progress through school, these attitudes are reinforced by our classmates and peers” (PsychAlive). This further exaggerates the fact that young children are getting this stereotype in their mind. The reality TV show America’s Next Top Model is basically a competition to determine which woman is the prettiest to be the next ‘top model’. There really is not a more obvious stereotype out there. When young girls or even young adults are watching these shows and seeing all these women dressing up and acting the way they are, they feel less of themselves when they are not the same. It is not only offensive to all the women that are not models, it is unfair that women tend to compare themselves to the models. This causes a serious sadness in women when they believe their appearance is not enough. Yet, women are not the only gender affected by stereotypes. An unfair stereotype towards men are the fact that all men are supposed to be extremely muscular or fit. A majority of magazine covers “often contain images of what the media defines as masculine” (“Unexpected Social Pressures”). Men reading these magazines have the same effect as women…

    • 1625 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Who are we? Who am I? With the average American exposed to approximately 3,000 ads a day they all remind us of who we are not and who we should be. The images we are constantly bombarded with by the mass media don’t just sell products they “sell values, images, concepts of love, sex, and normativity”, standards to which we so often compare ourselves to. Ads reinforce gender binaries, all making a statement about what it means to be a woman in this culture of thinness stressing a particular importance on physical beauty. Jean Kilbourne’s film Killing Us Softly explores and exposes the detrimental effects of the objectification and dehumanization in the representation of women in the popular culture, specifically advertisements.…

    • 647 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first major or/One of the most important differences men and women run into in terms of body image is the disturbing pressure from social media networks on how they perceive an attractive body. The author contends, girls have become victimized by society’s hyper sexualization and are exposed to the idea that their value as female is closely related to their sexuality. (Heldman 65). In contrast advertising companies highly influence women over men because women spend more time obsessing over their physical attributes. Moreover the media exposes women as a sex character, which impairs their judgment towards their body image. For example author contends “it’s because U.S. residents are now being exposed to 3,000 to 5,000 advertisements a day- as many per year as those living a half a century ago would have seen in a lifetime” (Heldman 64). Also everyday men and women and bombarded with unrealistic images from media outlets that influence the human race to acquire unattainable bodies. In contrast men are not as influenced from television advertisements even though they spend more time watching television.…

    • 798 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays