The slender, “beautiful” women are regarded as influential, successful, and erotic. This being said, it is very much so based on facts and reason, also known as logos, in the aspect that real life is often viewed this way. Throughout Elementary school up to High school, no one wanted to be best friends with “the fat kid”. As the world already knows, girls and women in general seem to stress over their physical appearance and have been especially concerned about weight for many years now. The emotional effect media has on a woman’s mindset, or ethos, could very well send her overboard into what is commonly known as an eating disorder.
NOW explains that their endorsements are intelligent, well-rounded authentic women, but Fazzone wants to know if they are really women who bask in the sex object role, and what are the shows NOW endorses are really about? Felicity was the third-most feminist show in NOW’s “Feminist Primetime Report,” yet the women would do anything for the crush she followed to college. For example, in the show, once a week, Felicity would revolve her life around the same guy. The other shows that were ranked high in NOW were heroines they stated as one’s who “broke out of the sex object role,” but Fazzone explains that instead these “heroines” are empowered only because they’ve decided that what really drives female power is sex. How authentic are these actresses that NOW endorses, Fazzone questions.
She dreams of being a famous, a star that everyone worships and treats with respect. That is the real Precious hidden behind of the vulgar comments her mother has put in her head. She wishes that she was light skinned, real skinny, and long hair; that’s how she imagines herself. Precious mother, Mary has issues of her own that were shown at the end of the film. Mary has not always been abusive to Precious and didn’t think so low of her.
Most women these days would do anything to look pretty and attract the opposite sex. This story gives us the importance of body image to women and they get judged about it. Amber the “finger throated sickness one”. She gets teased because of her anorexic appearance. This is a mental illness common to the young woman.
This film not only displays how the world expects teenage girls to act, but also how difficult it is for teenage girls to resist acting this way. Mean Girls is a perfect example of how girls, want to be like the plastics. You have the Queen Bee throughout the movie and every normal girl wishing and wanting to be like her. She’s like the Barbie, everyone wish they could
Many of the ads today give an image that in order to be happy and satisfied in life you have to be sexual or look sexy to get ahead. These ads are giving the wrong impression to our very fragile and susceptible young women. I believe
Nancy says, “Girls are being bombarded with the message that they need to be super-skinny to be sexy.” (Hellmich 706) I believe that is very true when she says that but what young girls don’t realize is that you could be beautiful and sexy with any body type that you might have. I think that there needs to be a clear message that tells young girls that because if there isn’t it could become very dangerous for
In “The Merchants of Cool,” the author investigates the rising fascination with teen pop culture. Teenagers are constantly vying for attention, causing them to imitate popular celebrities. Major corporations try to capitalize off this, showing productions and advertisements to influence them further. The era of family friendly programming has no longer any place in primetime television; shows such as Dawson’s Creek and Cruel Intentions have completely infiltrated the TV schedule to reflect teens’ all-consuming fascination with sexuality. One of the major networks responsible for influencing pop culture is MTV, telling kids what’s cool.
Certain magazines, like Seventeen, talk about being body positive, but show slim models in their pages (Benowitz-Fredericks et al, 2012). How is an adolescent girl going through changes supposed to make heads or tails of what they are reading? In addition, many television networks talk about going against body ideals, but have only thin actresses on the network. Even within the music industry there are songs about being body positive, yet they come from singers who are relatively slim. Being heavier than “normal” becomes a criticism of character and leaves girls the most vulnerable.
There are a number of women who have eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia trying to look like Miss USA when really it just might not be their body type. Women who starve themselves and call themselves fat on a regular basis. Well they would have nothing to compare themselves to if we as a society weren’t constantly flashing slim women on TV or in magazines. I wonder if there was a Mr. America pageant if men would start to doubt their body types and conform to what is socially accepted for a mans body. All in all I was shocked when I read this and think it is very sad that on national television there is a body type this is accepted.