Throughout this paper I will be discussing my personal views on the different ways the media portrays beauty. We all know that times have changed but does that mean that our ways of defining beauty should as well? I would have to say, no. To me beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, and color but the media has a different perspective of it. When watching television, looking magazines, or anything else with an image of a female beauty is only considered beautiful when it consists of a thin women with loads of makeup on and next to no clothes on. If you look around you will notice that majority of the women in society do not look like this but are influenced by the media to try.
Women vs. Society
I have chosen a few images from the cover of the popular Vogue Magazine to critique. This magazine was the first to come to mind because I was observing one the other day in the check-out lane in the grocery store and noticed the thin figured woman on it, as did ALL the magazines on the rack. As I searched for a good cover to use as an example I noticed that every single one of the cover had thin ladies on it, not a single one had a woman on it that was of size. This can be a concern because it is not only in magazine like my example one, but also all over television, which is watched by adults and children almost eight hours day (Campbell, Martin, Fabos, 2014), the internet, and even bulletin boards. By society looking at the “thin” women as the idol figured women it leaves the larger women feeling left out of society. It also leaves the child especially the little and teenage girls with higher expectations of themselves. This can lead to a corrupted self-image which will lead to low self-esteem. By them having these self-issues and wanting to be accepted by society some will try to go the dangerous extreme to become “beautified” even it means becoming unhealthy to do so. Women can go through physical and mental problems so that they can overcome what they are not happy with within themselves because of the media’s definition of beautiful women. Goodman stated “A big woman is neither seen nor heard in our thinness-obsessed society (1995)”, this is very upsetting that larger women are viewed like this especially when you have children growing up.
Just as some think that violence on television influences the young boys to commit crime I feel that young girls can also go through many different issue when wanting to be accepted, they can become vulnerable and depressed. I have two daughters and would never want them to feel that they are not accepted because of their weight or because they do not look like the women on television. I also have two sons and would not want them to judge a women because they are not the “ideal” figured woman.
This
