At the end of Chapter 5 under the Controversies section I became interested in the heading “The Impact of Images.” It talks about how the images portrayed in magazines of women are not realistic compared to the average person who reads them. I think. I had heard of this problem within the last couple years and I wondered how that changes the perception of the “not so perfect” readers.
In “The Impact of Images” section it talks about how between the “1960’s and the 1990’s images in print media went from being average to 30% thinner than average, which placed many of them in the anorexic stage.” I remember watching the Golden Globes a couple years back and seeing a number of actresses and models deathly skinny and how the commentators were commenting on good they looked. I couldn’t believe they thought they looked good! I was so turned off by it and wondered who on earth would like to look at a woman who is basically just skin and bone.
I feel that recently though women who are in the spotlight are toning it down a little with their excessive weight loss, but that’s just been my perception. For all I know I could be wrong. Nonetheless, as a result of exposing the public to this idea that skinny is always better, they have made the rest of women in America feel their bodies will never be perfect and that they will never be happy with their body. Rodman says, “As fashion magazines continue to promote this unrealistic body size and shape, survey after survey shows that women are increasingly unhappy with their bodies.”
In my opinion I don’t see this “skinny” fad to end anytime soon. Hollywood and the media are still going to promote what they think looks good and what looks good is slender women. They know that’s what every woman wants to ultimately look like and therefore they think that’s what women want to see.
Pregnancy in the media
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Question: Does the media glorify teen pregnancy?
Thesis: The media portrays pregnancy unrealistically, thus negatively
affecting teenagers and their likelih...
17 years ago
4 comments:
Yes, skinny women are universally ideal image. Although this trend has been continuing, some fashion collections in Europe decided not to use skinny women as a collection model because skinny models encourage eating disorder. It seems to me American women are less obsessed with losing weight compared to women in other countries, and I think this is because a lot of plus-size clothes are available and chubby women are sometimes considered sexy.
Body image is a critical issue in the realm of media studies. The use of images portraying anorexic women i is detrimental to the physical and mental health of today’s female population. Women are told that it is normal to not eat and be deathly skinny. This phenomenon perpetuates itself men and women see these images and come to believe that the people portrayed in the images are the norm which leads to damaging lifestyle choices. I also fear that this trend will be ongoing.
I feel that the issues pressed with body image are rather biased towards women, ignoring what is also a growing trend amongst younger men; a carnal obsession with the gym. I've known roughly the same number of "roid monkeys" as anorexics, both sharing the same contorted ideal of self-perfection through physical means. Needless to say, "McPaper" has plenty to do with some root issues, but for the most part, with or without the media, body-envy is an inevitable crash that most people run into at least once in their lives.
This isn't an old social trend, either; Chinese foot-binding, Incan skull-binding, African...erm...neck-binding (you know what I mean), all potentially and intentionally damaging vanity practices passed through the social order.
It doesn't help that our media exacerbates this by pointing out celebrity issues and further cluttering our perceptions of beauty, but that's really not as much as "hollywood"'s fault as it is our social whole's lack of effort to spending only 15 minutes, picking up a book, and edumicating ourselves pragmatically with scientific facts.
Then again in the metropolitan populace's view, any Dr. Andrew Weil publication won't be as captivating as a half-naked and starving starlet on the cover of the Inquirer.
I agree with you that this skinny fad isn't going to end any time soon. I believe that it is far too huge of a problem to come up with a simple solution, even if we did ban skinny models from the media. Women have been exposed to this thin ideal their entire lives, being shown thousands of images that reinforce this ideal. Because the media is so prominent in our lives, it is nearly impossible for women not to compare themselves to models and celebrities, even if we know that it is unnatural. I think that Tyra Banks has been an excellent role model for girls, celebrating bodies that don't look like skeletons.
This topic demonstrates how powerful and influential the media is. Women's body image is only a small portion of this ongoing problem.
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