Regardless if it’s 2012 or 1950, young girls struggle with self-confidence issues. Marilyn Monroe was not the skinniest girl ever and she loved her body. She put out the message that tall, short, skinny, fat, white, or black you should always love the body you were given. One of her famous quotes was, “I’m living proof that you can still be adored by thousands, even
“I am on this stage because I am a pretty, white woman, and in my industry we call that a sexy girl,” says Cameron Russel on her Ted Talk. While people in poorer countries can’t pay for surgery that they need to survive, Americans spend millions on surgery to make them look better. For example, the number of breast surgeries increased five hundred and ninety-three percent from 1992 to 2002 according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons website. Magazines geared toward woman are filled with cosmetic advertisement, which targets women in their teens to thirties. Its main contents are make-up, jewelry, fashion design, and celebrities.
She is the iconic womanly figure of what woman strive to be and she embodies the vision of earthly love. Modern day marketing companies use her name on products, in an effort to project an air of seduction, beauty and allure. In relation to Landau’s book, I personally asked plenty of my male friends for statistical research off course, asking what they think the best feature of a woman is. Not surprisingly, most men stated that one of the best features of a woman are
Adriana Lima is by far the most beautiful and most talented Victoria's Secret model in the world. First, she seems like a very nice person. Secondly, she has the best face and body of any model. Finally, she can work the runway and look good on any given day of the year. Due to the fact that Adriana has a very glowing personality, this will lead others to think she is a very nice and delightful person.
She has a great impact on American pop culture and the lives of women with her empowering music by planting a message in the society that being a female means she is in control and aiming to success comes with hard work. Beyonce Knowles is an influential icon in popular culture with her award-winning songs and top quality performances while at the same time, managing her million dollars businesses and playing the role of a wife and mother. She marks her place as a female artist that will be remembered over many years to come because she sets the standard of perfection in the music industry and she has inspired fellow singers and performers to follow her footsteps. British singer Leona Lewis commented, “Beyonce is great, so lovely and down to earth and talented. She’s inspiring”.
Magazines such as Dolly, Cleo, Girlfriend and Cosmo all exhibit impossible ideas of ‘perfect’ in which teenagers perceive as the only acceptable image in this society. Teenage girls in this day and age are all exposed to sexualised concepts of women, and that thin and hot is the only desirable image for teenage girls. Many people don’t realize the impact celebrities and models in the media have on adolescents, they can manipulate the way they display themselves to others. These magazines send a confusing and misleading message to readers. Half the articles in these magazines tell you that you are beautiful no matter what body shape, then they go on to show images of size six super models; portraying them as the idealistic teenage girl.
Modeling along with social media give girls the impression that they have to fit this idealized image to look thin and be beautiful, dress up nicely, and wear makeup or they will not be happy with themselves. The pressure to look a certain way has psychological effects on young girls. Changing the way they dress or eat changes and influences their identity. Unfortunately, womanizing photographers exist in the modeling industry; young girls are scared to speak up if their uncomfortable with how everything is going. No matter what their age may be,
How exactly does the media portray women? The easiest way to answer this question is to take a look at how the media depicts success and beauty in regards to women. Some of the most successful women in the celebrity world are known for one thing: their bodies. “Female empowerment, as portrayed in the media, is achieved through sexuality” (Generation M: misogyny in media & culture 62). For example, at the MTV Video Music Awards, Madonna and Britney Spears locked lips in what was considered more than “a peck on the cheek”.
It will also feature the life and funeral of Margret Thatcher, the first woman Britain prime minister. The media has seen to greatly influence the life of the ordinary citizens of a country. For example body image. The media has in the past represented an ideal body size for the ultimate beauty. The size has mostly been about women.
Consistently, women are diminished by advertisers to pretty body parts used to sell products, a practice that perpetuates the glorification of this unreasonable ideal of beauty. Women’s bodies have not only become a huge money-maker for advertisers, businesses have picked up on women’s insecurities about their bodies and have capilatized on these insecurities. On one hand, advertisers heavily market weight-reduction programs and present young anorexic models as the paradigm of ideal beauty; on the other hand, the media floods the airwaves and magazine pages with ads for junk food. In 1996, the diet industry (as in diet foods, diet programs, diet drugs) took in over $40 billion dollars, and that number is still climbing (Facts and Figures 1). Young women seem to be especially affected by our culture’s obsession with weight and beauty.