New wave of activists challenge notions of beauty

Media is one of the most influential institutions in terms of giving us a certain message constantly in all aspects of every day life. Regarding the beauty ideal, it has extended the gap between the ideal and the reality of beauty by influencing culture and dictating gender norms and values which reflect the power existing in the society. Dominant power such as white, middle-class, able-body, and straight women is regarded as ideal and those manipulated image in the media would be exaggerated by media and firmly embedded in the society. Actually, media often make the image of women more violent and sexualized in order to get viewers’ attention. So it is very important to think about how media influence our perspective and why it can be dangerous.

As we discussed in the class, beauty ideal is internalized and lead to horizontal hostility which is the resentment and anger about one’s situation onto other status of people. Regarding Caroline Heldman, a professor of Occidental University, saying “your value of self-worth is dependent on the amount of sexual attractiveness you have to the outside world,” we are extremely concerned about our body because we are afraid of the eyes of others to our body being failed to meet the ideal. Our bodies are not just a property of our own but the objects to be seen by others. Fat oppression is one of those social products prevailed by media. Being thin is a major concern for women not only in the US but also all around the world. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, 10 million women are suffering from anorexia or a bulimia and 80% of all 10 year-old children are afraid of being fat in the US. I think it’s significantly big.

I think it is a good thing to be aware that we are seen by others in that it can restrain the extreme or inappropriate act in some cases but at the same time. For example, parents’ surveillance plays important role in preventing their children from becoming delinquent. However, at the same time, it holds the potential danger to draw some extreme acts such as anorexia and bulimia by giving us too much pressure on our bodies. In addition, it is true that obesity has a lot of negative impact on our bodies but we need to be aware that what media and diet companies allege is not the importance of being “healthy” but loosing weight until they reach the impossible ideal. And as long as we justify ourselves by regarding fatness as personal choice and negotiatable, the stigma against the fat people keep existing.

What counts would be how to react to the pressure from the others. No matter how institutions like media or peers press us, we should keep in mind that our body is ourselves’ and do not have to change by cosmetic surgery, photoshopping, or taking pills. Even if media will keep producing beauty ideals based on domestic cultures and a lot of people tend to follow it without thinking or challenging, as we learned the Intention of to maximize their profit and the system of how media constructs our image of beauty, we can change our behavior toward that biased information. From the article, Jesse Rosten, a California-based commercial director and filmmaker’s words will be good to remember. “Go easy on yourself. We are all human, and it's OK to look like a human. Nobody will ever measure up to a beauty ideal that is, literally, physically impossible."

 

References:

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/health/infographic.eating.disorders/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

Going to extremes: Eating disorders

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/09/living/beauty-media-miss-representation/index.html?iref=allsearch

Sex, lies and media: New wave of activists challenge notions of beauty