I work with primarily women. At anyone time, I expect at least 3 of my co-workers to be on a diet. It annoys thefew boys that I work with because they don’t understand the obsession. Due tothis, when we covered “Beauty is a Beast” in class, I was inspired for this project. Women areheld to an impossible beauty standard, and within this is the impossiblethinness standard. Although many women and girls realize that they will neverlook like the size double zero models in the magazines, they continue to strivefor it in increasingly more extreme ways. I first saw pictures of what I callthe thigh gap phenomenon on Tumblr. This says that a girl is not skinny enoughuntil she can stand with her feet together and have her thighs not touch. Whilemost Tumblr users are young adults ages 18-24, many, like myself, start anaccount on the site years before they turn 18.
The model in the picture is lookingat the computer, looking at the picture found on Tumblr. She’s using her handsto separate her thighs in an attempt to look like the girl in the picture. She’snot smiling. There’s a pile of pants on the floor as if she’s gone throughmultiple pairs of pants, trying to find the ones that make her legs look thesmallest.
The computer in the picturesymbolizes the peer to peer connection that has rapidly spread this ideal ofthinness and beauty. Girls on these sites share diet plans and different waysto lose weight in order to try to attain a thigh gap. The picture on the computerscreen being the only part of the picture in focus in addition to the modellooking at the screen shows that the girl in the picture on the computer is theideal. This is the girl that other girls would be looking to, trying to become.The rest of the picture is blurred to show that because the model does not havea thigh gap, she simply blends in with the crowd. She is average. The colors inthe picture are muted and the model is dressed in black and white to show that sheis not happy with her appearance. She doesn’t feel beautiful because she’s notthin enough.
3 comments:
I agree with Devon’s photo analysis when she says that young girls are not happy with their weight, and she shows this by using the website Tumblr. I think it is interesting that Devon chose black and white clothes to show, in her opinion, the model’s unhappiness. I think unhappiness is an accurate conclusion, but also she could have white on to show her innocence. The girl could not realize that participating in the “thigh gap” trend is causing unhappiness for herself, and if she wasn't obsessed with looking like the models she would find happiness within her own body. I think the computer symbolizes the media and how harsh the trends of today can become. Young girls are putting their unhappiness first and their health last to become beautiful and popular. I like that the background is messy with the clothes on the floor and the robe hanging up on the door. That can symbolize how there are mixed signals girls get: you have to be thin, but if you diet too much it’s not good. In the end, the girls will do what they have to to look like the models in the media.
The “thigh gap” phenomenon is becoming a big epidemic among young girls these days. This picture captures that problem very well. With showing how girls see all these very thing women online and think that’s how they need to look to be accepted in today’s society. It also shows just how damaging the social media is becoming now a days with the pictures and comments posted all over the internet making girls insecure about how they look. The pile of pants on the floor is a really good way to show what a lot of us girls struggle with; we all look for those perfect pants that accentuate our body. When we get dressed we can go through so many outfits until we finally pick one, most of the time we still aren’t even happy with what we have chosen. Also black is a color to be “slimming” and for her to be wearing black pants may be a way for her to feel more comfortable in what she is wearing. Her facial expression looks like she is very disappointed in what she sees in the mirror as opposed to what she is looking on at the computer screen.
Wow this is something new to me. I have never heard of this. The blog does give full insight on the pressures of what society thinks women's weight should be. I just did a paper on a u-tube clip for health class and it was called "The Skinny on Obesity". This clip was talking about how all people should try to avoid obesity but they did not go to the extreme of saying that men or women should be so thin that this to, on the other end of the spectrum is a suggested idea. Matter of fact, these extremities remind me of a saying that I once learned, "to much of anything is not good". So the young women and girls, especially who are trying to be a size zero could be causing potential health problems. I am no expert in health but I do know that there is something that when you go to the gym or doctor, it measures if you are over weight by giving info to a physician or health trainer by telling them your height, weight, and age. The info is, of course, validated by a scale and you can find out your body mass index. This picture does show a female, who I think is very thin and because she is trying to keep losing weight or even stay thin...she is making herself miserable. The pile of jeans was a good touch to resemble that no matter how she looks...to herself...that this is not good enough because it is not up to standards of the model she sees or the friends she is trying to compare to.
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