Ideal In American Culture
Jane Castellani
Trista Martin
LA 202-OL6
5/15/2012
Ideal Image
It’s pretty easy to see that the beauty ideal in American culture is thin. The media seems to target women—especially through advertisements, shows, celebrities, and other media outlets. Most of the media industry promotes being thin and nearly condemn any who dare to stand out from what the entertainment world deems beautiful.
It’s come to the point that if a girl, regardless of age, is concerned, even to the point of obsession, over her weight nobody would think anything of it. That’s because it has become a social norm to want to be thinner and diet. This desire to be Hollywood skinny is just so prevalent among women of all ages. (Haley K. Dohnt and Marika Tiggemann, …show more content…
They’re not giving up any media—they’re just picking up more.” So in a time where kids are watching over twenty-four hours worth of media throughout the week, is it still right to think that all they’re absorbing is harmless?
Simply put: all things have both a pro and a con, but it would seem that overall, the medias vast influence is doing more to harm our society and women’s self-confidence than to help it. We need a movement that will promote a healthy lifestyle that doesn’t require so much fantasy and fiction mixed in. So many people get wrapped up in reality television and the life of celebrities that they try and live those people’s lives instead of their own.
The old Hollywood star Cary Grant was quoted saying: “Even I want to be Cary Grant.” We need to show that these models and actresses aren’t all smooth skin and thin bodies by birth but are idealized in the minds of Hollywood to look and dress the way they do, and that it’s not nature. We need a wakeup call to what is truly reality and what is pure …show more content…
You can’t look like them.
Don’t be naïve to think that the media is just all fun, but also, one can’t be so critical so that they would believe that the media is all bad. We need a happy medium between the two of them so we can enjoy the media and return it to its roots, which was to simply entertain.
Works Cited:
Dohnt, Haley K., and Marika Tiggemann. The Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Vol. 35. Springer Science+Business, 2006. Web.
Story, Louise “Anywhere the Eye Can See, It’s Likely to See an Ad.”
New York Times, 15th January 2007, Web. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/business/media/15everywhere.html?pagewanted=all "TV Brings Eating Disorders to Fiji." BBC News. BBC, 20 May 1999. Web. 15 May 2012. .
Hartstein, Jennifer L. “Media and Tween Girls: Creating a Positive Influence.” Psychology Today, 9th April 2012, n. pag. Web.
Gold, Matea. "Kids watch more than a day of TV each week." Los Angeles Times, 27th October 2009, n. pag. Web. 1 May. 2012.
Manning, Toby (1996). All for one and one for all. New Statesman and Society, 9,
Trista Martin
LA 202-OL6
5/15/2012
Ideal Image
It’s pretty easy to see that the beauty ideal in American culture is thin. The media seems to target women—especially through advertisements, shows, celebrities, and other media outlets. Most of the media industry promotes being thin and nearly condemn any who dare to stand out from what the entertainment world deems beautiful.
It’s come to the point that if a girl, regardless of age, is concerned, even to the point of obsession, over her weight nobody would think anything of it. That’s because it has become a social norm to want to be thinner and diet. This desire to be Hollywood skinny is just so prevalent among women of all ages. (Haley K. Dohnt and Marika Tiggemann, …show more content…
They’re not giving up any media—they’re just picking up more.” So in a time where kids are watching over twenty-four hours worth of media throughout the week, is it still right to think that all they’re absorbing is harmless?
Simply put: all things have both a pro and a con, but it would seem that overall, the medias vast influence is doing more to harm our society and women’s self-confidence than to help it. We need a movement that will promote a healthy lifestyle that doesn’t require so much fantasy and fiction mixed in. So many people get wrapped up in reality television and the life of celebrities that they try and live those people’s lives instead of their own.
The old Hollywood star Cary Grant was quoted saying: “Even I want to be Cary Grant.” We need to show that these models and actresses aren’t all smooth skin and thin bodies by birth but are idealized in the minds of Hollywood to look and dress the way they do, and that it’s not nature. We need a wakeup call to what is truly reality and what is pure …show more content…
You can’t look like them.
Don’t be naïve to think that the media is just all fun, but also, one can’t be so critical so that they would believe that the media is all bad. We need a happy medium between the two of them so we can enjoy the media and return it to its roots, which was to simply entertain.
Works Cited:
Dohnt, Haley K., and Marika Tiggemann. The Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Vol. 35. Springer Science+Business, 2006. Web.
Story, Louise “Anywhere the Eye Can See, It’s Likely to See an Ad.”
New York Times, 15th January 2007, Web. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/business/media/15everywhere.html?pagewanted=all "TV Brings Eating Disorders to Fiji." BBC News. BBC, 20 May 1999. Web. 15 May 2012. .
Hartstein, Jennifer L. “Media and Tween Girls: Creating a Positive Influence.” Psychology Today, 9th April 2012, n. pag. Web.
Gold, Matea. "Kids watch more than a day of TV each week." Los Angeles Times, 27th October 2009, n. pag. Web. 1 May. 2012.
Manning, Toby (1996). All for one and one for all. New Statesman and Society, 9,