Sunday, 2 September 2012

Final essay.


Media Studies 91250 – What A Girl Wants



Why is our image of beauty distorted? The way society views the image of women is based on the way that they are portrayed by different forms of media. Every day we are all exposed to image of women on billboards, advertisements, TV programmes, movies, videos or in magazines. In the media women are shown as being perfect; having flawless skin with no flaws and having the perfect skinny figure, they are also shown as being seductive and promiscuous and are used as sex objects in advertisements as a way to sell a product. The problem with these images is that they are unrealistic for girls to achieve because most of the images we see are edited and photo shopped to show perfection. This creates self-doubt among many teenage girls around the world as they want to be like the women they see and become self-conscious with their own bodies, they then feel like they aren’t good enough or beautiful. If the media continues to influence the lives of girls in the future, I am worried about when I have a daughter that she won’t think she is beautiful.

One of the ways that the media expresses the image of women is through advertisements.  An example of this is a Tom Ford commercial marketing his sunglasses range. He uses sex appeal in his commercial by showing a woman wearing only a pair of black sunglasses. This commercial represents teenage girls as being seductive and using sex as a way to appeal to society.  The shot size of the commercial is focusing on the woman’s body not the sunglasses on her face; the image shows the top half of the woman from her belly-button up with her just covering her chest with her arm. Why do they need a naked girl on a commercial to sell a pair of sunglasses? This image effects teenage girls because it sends them the message that they need to flaunt their bodies and be seductive, it also sends bad moral values teaching them that sex appeal is the most important thing not teaching them that being smart or ambitious is important. This affects the attitude in society towards teenage girls because people will only look at women for their body not for their brains. The woman modeling in Tom Ford’s advertisement compared to real women in society is unrealistic because the women in advertisements are photo shopped and edited so much to make them look absolutely perfect; they have flawless skin with no imperfections and have the perfect skinny figure. I think it is stupid how advertisers edit woman’s bodies to make them look better because what is wrong with the way that they look originally? Even models that are already attractive are edited. This is unrealistic because normal women do not look like the ones on magazines which is why they take such drastic measures to change their bodies. The consequence of this advertisement is that teenage girls will think that they can’t achieve anything with their talents and wont aim for being successful and having a good job because they don’t think that being smart is attractive in society. Teenage girls will also feel so unsecure about their bodies that it will lead them to dangerous dieting and plastic surgery to try to be perfect.  For example Heidi Montag who had over 10 cosmetic surgeries to make her body look better. Society will see women as less equal to men and not as good workers which will mean that they won’t want to employ them.


Another way that the media expresses the image of women is through music videos. An example of this is the video clip by Pink ‘Stupid Girls.’ The video represents the fact that not all teenage girls are influenced by the media and want to be like the women they see, it shows that some girls would rather show ambition and be successful. The video shows the way that women are seen in the media; with women dressed in pink and glittery clothes to show them as ditsy and blonde and also women wearing bikinis washing a car and wearing short skirts and crop tops which symbolizes the fact that women flaunt their bodies in the media to get attention from the audience. The video also shows the contrast to the ‘stupid girl’ and shows Pink as a president dressed in a black suit with the question: “What happened to the dreams of a girl president?” This is telling the audience that the dreams of teenage girls have been lost because of the media’s influence. The video clip is realistic because it shows that girls can become successful instead of focusing on their appearance and acting dumb because the media tells us that’s what we should do. The video features scenes relating to famous celebrities like Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson that the audience can relate to and shows them how stupid they look from the audiences perspective. The effect that this has on teenage girls is good as it is showing them that some girls are going against the trend of how the media is portraying women and want to grow up being smart. This will then encourage teenage girls to become ambitious themselves and focus on school and getting a good job instead of focusing on their appearance. This will then lead into society seeing woman as powerful people and not just judging them on whether they are attractive or unattractive.


Another way that the media portrays women in the media is through TV programmes. An example of this is the well-known reality TV show in MTV called ‘Jersey Shore.’ Jersey Shore is very popular with teenagers and has a demographic audience age of teenagers to early twenties. The programme represents teenage girls as being promiscuous and seductive and that they are becoming fake in their appearance. The show has a bad influence on teenage girls that watch is as most of the content shows the actors excessively drinking, clubbing and acting sexual. The women are dressed in short skirts and dresses that are low-cut and show cleavage, they wear excessive make-up and constantly get fake tans. Teenage girls are affected by the TV programme, Jersey Shore because they look up the actors as role models and are influenced by the way they act and dress. This means that teenage girls will start acting seductive at a younger age and start getting fake tans, wearing heavy make-up and wearing clothes that show their bodies. Society then sees women as sexual objects because of the way they look, instead of being seen as classy sophisticated women and will not be seen as highly to men. The woman on Jersey Shore is a realistic comparison to the woman around the world today because it shows how woman act and dress to look better because of the media’s pressure on them to be perfect.


After seeing the way that the media portrays the image of woman it made me realize how superficial the industry is and how obsessed woman are getting about being attractive because of the pressure. I feel like teenage girls are trying hard to compete against each-other to be prettier, skinnier and to have fuller chests when we all should be happy with how we look and feel beautiful. Even though I know that most images I see are edited or photo shopped I am still one of the main consumers of the media because whenever I see a woman I think ‘I wish I had a body like hers’ and I still want to buy products that are on commercials like make-up.

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