It
might be controversial to say that our modern society has an
unhealthy obsession with the images of beauty and ‘ideal’ body
images. However, there is the evidence to suggest that the constant
flow of images that stem from certain norms in our society do have an
effect on the masses, and there can be little doubt that modern
society's obsession with appearance and their attempt
to achieve the 'ideal' body image is not only unrealistic for the
majority of people but also unhealthy.
For
instance, when we type in google “women’s magazine covers’’
the only images we see are those “unrealistic”, “perfect”
women.
Also,
when we look at the graph from GraphJam.com about what information is
the most popular on the covers of women’s magazines, the most
likely thing to be put on the cover page are new diets or how to
loose your weight.
So
how is the media (especially,
women's magazines) presenting female body images?
Nowadays,
fashion images are not “reality” but an artfully arranged
manipulation of visual elements. In today's media standards in order
to be a perfect woman you must be skinny, tall and of fair
complexion.
Therefore,
yesterday’s sex symbols would be considered fat and short by
today’s standard.
Moreover,
in general media distort the women conception of perfect women body
image, since all images are computer generated (thus unnatural)
images of perfect women. Because of that viewers believe that they
can achieve this perfect body image by being on a diet, doing plastic
surgeries or using particular promoted cosmetic products.
So
what are the effects of ‘ideal’, yet, ’unrealistic’ female
media’s images on women?
In
my opinion the main effects are:
- growing number of eating disorders among women
- growing popularity of plastic surgeries
- and also diet industry is booming up
However,
nowadays some media and beauty companies have already started to
fight against the growing trend of 'ideal’ body images presented by
the media. For instance, let’s have a look at Dove’s campaign
about generating perfect women for a advertisement using advanced
technology.
In
this video, we can see how an average girl has quickly become “super
attractive” and “ideal” by only using computers programs…
Another
film from Dove’s campaign for Real Beauty.
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| http://smr.lexispr.com/ |
- Do you think that our idea of beauty should be defined by the images that we see in the media?
- What are other side effects of female unreal images, presented in women's magazines', on both young and mature women?
- What do you think of Dove's campaign for Real Beauty?
It's not like we're being cheated for no reason. Problem photoshoped women came together for the demand to be perfect. people want to be surrounded by beautiful people and plastic covers are icons of beauty for them. I do not feel that someone is cheating on me, looking through a magazine cover modowego.Screaming that everything is a matter of manipulation is a mistake. There are 2 sides of the problem. In my opinion there are "beautiful" people whose appearance is due to their work and "happiness." For example Adriana Lima, for me is iicon of beauty. When I see pictures of her in magazines and then I see the Victoria's Secret catwalk, I see the same person. The other side of the coin are the stars that are famous but not perfect. And it's about these people. They want to be seen as ideal and, unfortunately, must be corrected for the covers. It may sound intolerantly, but it's silly to watch photos and believe it's true. What's more stupid is to have disorder with a sense of own beauty by this fact.
ReplyDeleteDove's ad reminds me of a great parody which reflects the essence of the problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=PL&hl=pl&v=7-kSZsvBY-A
ReplyDeleteLet consider what is "beauty" and what it means for us. If someone is beautiful, atractive (no matter what those words means) then this person have easer life. Can get better job, people trust such person and so on. Earlier beauty was in most cases determined by DNA. It is simple evolution - we want to create our species more beautiful.
Beauty in ohter countries means other things. For example in some parts of Asia women is considered as attractive only if she weights above 130kg. In some society in Africa womens with long neck are valuable.
Now magazines and most every campaign want to sell recipe for beauty which is probably most valuable thing in our life. We do not have a significant impact on it, but they say that if we spend "enough" money we will get it.
Another thing is to provide people "imaginary", "unreal" picture of beauty, which is in most cases wrong :) But whole thing is that you can't get it without spending more and more money...
Dove campaign ta only different group they are selling product to :) http://www.idoveyou.pl/pl/Produkty/pielegnacja_ciala/Balsamy_do_ciala/Ujedrniajaco_odzywczy_balsam_do_ciala_Dove_Firming.aspx
Since I can remember the beauty magazines always featured the beautiful women on their front cover. The image has always been flawless. Now,due to new technology,such as photoshop,the trend continues but even with more defined perfection,especially when looking at top scale fashion magazines. One could argue that this send a wrong message to the world creating fake definition of beauty especially in mind of a young girl. I agree with it partially. I think there is nothing wrong with a bit of correction but the main image has to stay true to reflect a real person. It is up to the individual to differentiate between what is real and what has been created to represent art.
ReplyDelete2.There are many possible side effects on women,both young and mature, when they treat a beauty cover as they ultimate beauty goal. If someone does not understand that the image has been altered,they probably require help. Also often you see young girls especially, with serious eating disorders because they want to look like the model seen on the cover. Therefore,it is important to educate one another to understand the real beauty and art.
3. Personally,I think that the campaign done by Dove is brilliant and we should see more of them. I think that the world of fashion is changing and we see more ordinary people of different shape and size working the craft. It is a move in a right direction. Also many designers hire girls who are full figure to model which breaks the stereotype of size zero model requirement.
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ReplyDeleteLike George Curlin said "I got this moron thing and it's called... thinking!". It's sad that so many people really believed in the image of women the media and magazines are trying to promote for so many years. Photoshoped, unreal female bodies have nothing to do with reality. Even the models from magazine covers wish they looked like they do on those photos after the magic touch of graphic software. Ofcourse I can't be hypocrite and I must say that I like to watch men's magazines like MAXIM with beautiful photos, but I know they're "corrected".
ReplyDeleteBesides there is so many different canons of beauty out there. What we need is a common sense and ability of wise judgment. The lady who wants to look like a "Cosmo" girl, or a guy with ambition of having a body from "Men's Health" cover is nothing wrong yet. Self improvement is a good thing. What is dangerous is an obsession. Obsession of getting that look. The look that in fact doesn't even exist in nature, that is an illusion. If you'll fall into this trap - you'll find yourself buying all the expensive cosmetics, spending money on plastic surgeries and so on.
That's why I really liked the Dove commercial. Natural, happy, beautiful and healthy woman. With normal bodies. Not fat, not too skinny, not perfect too, but real. This is a good direction, but there is no money in it (except for Dove :) so don't expect the sudden change.
I definitely think that the image of beauty should not be connected with anything that we see in the media because, as the presentation shows, the media tries to manipulate people. The Dove’s films show the process of making women more ‘attractive’ to make us more conscious about the reality. In the real world there are a few women who may seem to be perfect, while in the newspapers and on television almost every single girl looks so beautiful that makes the others jealous. The media promotes the image of the perfect women to make people use the cosmetics, read the advices from the ’beauty experts’ and go to the doctors they recommend. It is, as you said, ‘an unhealthy obsession’. What is sad is the fact that it touches the youngest ones who start to organize their diets in a way that would enable them to keep skinny. They are the most likely to get sick because of the lack of minerals and vitamins. Hopefully, the parents are ready to face this problem thanks to campaigns like Dove’s one. I am glad there are people who try to help the people at young age to prevent some disease which might lead straightaway to death. Unfortunately, I think that those campaigns are not sufficient since the number of women under the influence of the women’s magazines is growing. What is sure is that they might appeal to some girls before they get stuck in this vicious circle and they can maybe reduce the number of people blindly believing in everything they see in the media texts but they will never eliminate this influence in one hundred per cent.
ReplyDeleteUtter a short time on this, the media depends mainly on images of beautiful women, I agree with this because they are a good theme for the advertising of a product, but do not use graphics programs to improve women's imperfections. Each of us has some imperfections, which lives and the people they love, and in commercials, we see women who are at very deep make-up, the commercials and the newspapers we see an image processing computer, we live in a world where many people think that the world is perfect, but I think that is not the case and I would prefer to watch ads without any natural treatments.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think that our idea of beauty should not be defined by the images that we see in the media so that all the images that we see in the newspapers or the internet are not real, they are that are processed by various programs so that women watch actually look quite different. Through such activities, many women and men become depressed, begins to have a very low self-esteem and is not happy. There are ideals, each in its own way is beautiful and we should know their value and not to fall into depression while watching the idealized woman.
ReplyDeleteI think that leads Dove campaign is a great idea, so that people are finding that natural beauty is stunning and not to be ashamed of anything.
Really good article! Actually i feel like a victim of the whole "ideal beauty" thing. As a male i have really mixed feelings nowadays about women's beauty. But actually this is how it always worked... people don't want to look at average things in commercials, or not so attractive. What would happen if there was a average looking woman in the commercial, and some prettier girl would see this commercial? that prettier girl would definitely not use cosmetics from the commercial, and of course there is no statistic about how bueutiful is the prettiest woman ever :):):) so marketing has to exaggerate. I'll tell you where all that thing comes from! Simply from Japan! they have that thing placed in their culture, it is also a term defined in management, and it's called Total Quality Management, it says that we should create our goals as perfect as possible, and show them to our employees. The main goal of TQM is to chase the ideal goal which can't be never achieved. This is what marketing does in the beauty industry. They are creating the perfect woman to be chased by millions other women which probably does not exist. The total fail is that males also does look at these commercials in TV, posters etc... and we are being cheated :(. That's what i think. Also dove's campaign is really awesome, i really liked it. Haven't done any research on that campaign but i hope it will spread over the world and will open our minds.
ReplyDeleteSo what is our ideal of beauty should not depend on how they look female models in magazines. These are our personal preferences, but the truth is that the newspaper covers machined graphically and slim models are selling better. Once a newspaper, decided to check this,for two years resigned from retouching and thin models, but unfortunately lost a lot of money on this and readers, so they went back to it.
ReplyDeleteIn my oppinion we aim to be anorexics, because we see slim bodies in the media and we want to be like they. This is wrong way, because clothes hanger it isn't beautiful. Hopefully it starts to change, but most of girl's would like to be like anorexic models. Unfortunately magazines with "female unreal images" has bad influence on young people, because they trying to be like they and not rarely fall into anorexia.
ReplyDeleteDove's campaign for Real Beauty as I know is the better campaign to popularize and to remind people that anorexia is not beautiful.
We can argue about the rightness of creating ideal beauty ine media, but one thing is certain - crating stereotypes of ideal beauty has been always in our culture and all arround the world. In the past thoes stereotypes were specified by art - paintings, sculptures, etc. PEople were alwasy aiming to ideal beauty, though sterotypes were changing through centuries, for example, in the past more chubby persons were considered beautifull.
ReplyDeleteNowadays we are overloaded with pictures of ideally beautiful persons from internet, bilboards etc. It has bad influence on people, it make them have complexes and lot of people are too concern abut their look. I think it is knowingly planed, and set on profits. Such persons with complexes will buy more cosmetics, fancy clothes, dietetic supplements, and even take plastic surgery, just to look like person from the cover.
I have not much to say about dove real beauty campain. In my oppinion it is something obvious, and I cant predict if it will change our society way of thinking.
Thank you everyone for your comments. I am really glad that some of you agree with me.
ReplyDeleteMost of you know who Nigella Lawson is. Indeed, in my opinion she represents the ideal /perfect woman.
http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2011/12/15/1226223/021023-nigella-lawson.jp
Also, at this point I would like to remind you about one great woman from 50s and 60s, Marilyn Monroe (or MM), who represented and still represents another ideal of femininity.
http://www.stellasmagazine.com/marilyn-monroe-hollywood 's sweetheart /
Do not you think that is really nice to look at the ‘real’, ‘normal’ women's bodies?