what a gurl wants: September 2012

In the media women are used in many ways to sell the companies products, everywhere we go we are bombarded by this image in the magazines, ads on tv, music videos movies and billboards.Women are shown to be perfect having the perfect body, with perfect hair and skin! The problem is that these images are unrealistic and fake, they have been photoshopped by photographers to sell their products. This makes teenage girls feel insecure about their self-image due to the medias high standard of what a girl should look like.

Women are represented in the media as all they care about is their appearance and something to look at. In Disney cartoons like Cinderella, beauty and the beast and the little mermaid the media stereotype women as weak and vulnerable who are dependent on men for strength and survival. Here is a list of other stereotypes on women: the dumb blonde, the bitch, the whore, housewife, they are hardly represented as a woman with intelligence and independence and they always need to rely on men. The Medias stereotype of women as objects and helpless human beings creates very low expectations for the women in our society.

This stereotype shown in other media types such as Mean Girls a film directed by Mark Waters in 2004. The film stereotypes teenagers, by using cliques to show the different stereotypes. The film stereotypes pretty people as the 'plastics', the intelligent people as 'nerds', the people that are dress differently and wear dark clothes as the 'art freaks’.

Like a girl wants to be a celebrity, the rest of the girls in the school want to be someone from the plastics because essentially they are like the celebrities of the school, their prettiness makes them so popular and the not so pretty girls are jealous of them “I saw Maddie Gardner wearing army pants and flip flops so i bought army pants and flip flops. “This quote from the film explains it perfectly. You are uncool if you do not meet the standards of the plastic image. These stereotypes are mentioned because these cliques are stereotypically portrayed in every high school. If you think about it, there are little kids that look up to the celebrities we see in the media and if you look at the way they dress provactively and how they act, well they have a good chance of growing up to dress like that. This is shown in the film when the plastics are at Regina’s house: it shows her sister watching mtv and imitating the sexual dance moves from the TV. This is an example of how easily young girls get influenced by the media. By observing this, the kids learn how to act what to believe and fear in their lives

Living in our society today where perfection is everything, especially teenage girls who get affected by this pressure to be perfect, where they feel if they don’t look like the celebritys and models they see in the magazine their not good enough. The Media is presenting a false image of teenagers to the world. It sends the message that teens must be a certain weight and height, and have certain features and clothes in order to be considered "beautiful" and "fashionable". Their definition of a beautiful girl goes way beyond Barbie. Think skinner waist, bigger chest, tanned skin and taller.Nowadays the definition of beautiful is losing its meaning in our society, this is shown in other media types such as Jersey Shore and The GC where they need to tan and wear a lot of makeup just to look beautiful. Another way to be beautiful in the medias eye is to be thin, There was a time when the ideal body weight,women wanted to be and aspire to look like was famous celebrities like Raquel Welch, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Sophia Loren with their voluptuous hourglass figures and curvy shape. Nowadays the media bombards us with images of models and celebrities photoshopped to perfection

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I've been there, trust me,When I was younger, I tried to be skinny. There is so much pressure in today's society to look like the girl on the cover of the magazine. But [those photos] are airbrushed and have special lighting. She's gone, through two hours of hair and makeup. That just sets expectations really high for young girls." -Jessica Simpson

The message Jessica Simpson is trying to get across to us is that images or advertisements like the ones we see on the covers of magazines and billboards is not realistic its all airbrushed and fake, to not always think that those models are all pretty and perfect. But the reality is that no one actually looks like that everyday in real life! The models you see on billboards and magazines are generally photoshopped and air brushed so that every flaw, mole or pimple cannot be seen by the viewers eye.

Watching the dove evolution advertisement, made me realise that what we see on the TV, magazines and billboards are not realistic it shows how much makeup goes into making someone look beautiful in the media. The hours they spend into applying makeup and doing her hair is still not good enough to make her beautiful and so they must photoshop her to perfection. nowadays it is easier to fool the consumers. With the developing technology and cosmetic surgery it has become a common practice for celebrities in the medias spotlight to cover certain imperfections and to hide flaws. This is shown through Kim Kardashian who is famous for a sex tape and her hit family reality tv show "Keeping up with the Kardashians". Kim denied she went under the knife but then again she denied having a sex tape but we all know how that turned out!

No matter how much you spend on beauty products and surgery, you can never be perfect

I dont think teenage girls and women understand the meaning of beauty. They define beauty as someone with perfect skin, tanned skin, thin with large breasts and hardly any clothing, it is the media that is responsible for turning our society into believing that to be happy in life, you must be thin. The media sets standards on appearances that are impossible to meet. Trying hard to look like the celebrities they see on the magazine covers billboards and movies, teenage girls start obsessing over there weight, the makeup and skincare products she uses, the people she hangs out with, and the boys she dates, just to ensure she is fitting with what she sees in the media. Beauty is not in looks, not in what they say, just in who you are

The way teenage girls represented in movies has changed over time. Females used to be presented as passive and small roles, often just there to be an object of the mans desire. Nowadays girls are often the main character and the story is often told from their point of view. This is shown through the movie Brave in 2012 about a girl named Merida who changes the media stereotype on what a girl should be, this movie portrays Merida as the opposite of what a girl should look like with her curly red hair also as the hero instead of a male lead

Why is the media doing this to our children?The answer is simple!For the media the more products the companies sell based on the images we see, the more money they make! So it goes on and on, not caring of what effects it might have on the customer buying or consuming their product.

I believe our society today are slowly changing especially here at school, from teenage girls hiding their true colours under wraps by straightening their hair every morning just to fit in with the crowd and also wearing a lot of makeup is now makeup free and isn’t afraid to let their true colours show.

what a gurl wants

Monday 3 September 2012

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