The "Ideal" Look
From: RaelOf the many influences on how we view women, media is one of the most powerful and persuasive. All forms of media communicate images of the sexes, many of which display unrealistic or stereotypical ideas. Media influences girl culture with glamorizing the “size two” body image, that’s repeatedly displayed in magazines, radio, movies, and etc. In order to achieve this “ideal” size many girls put themselves at risk by doing harmful things to get to this beauty standard, such as eating disorders, plastic surgery, tanning excessively, and in some cases, getting permanent makeup application. Media promotes these things toward women and put a lot of pressure on women to obtain this beauty standard, which could also be harming the confidence of some young girls. In this photograph I decided to capture a young girl trying to distort her body image, and make it more “appealing” by stuffing her bra and trying to potray what she percieves as a perfect size, which society expects women to have to fit this beauty standard. The magazines and pictures of models on the mirror symbolize the media and how she looks to it to decide how she should act or look. The diet book is there to show how she tries to maintain her “ideal” body size. And the little specks and light scratches in the picture symbolize the imperfections that we all face and naturally go through but continue to try to cover up because the ideal of beauty is perfection.
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My eyes first focus went straight to the bathroom counter and how it displayed a ton of beauty supplies and magazines, books and etc. Representing that you must need product to be beautiful and someone else to compare yourself to, to force yourself to try to be as skinny or beautiful as they are or more. Models and actresses that show their beauty off show this by showing their bodies to represent the “ideal image” in society the whole “ size 2” stereotype. I think the model from the magazine on the mirror is put there as a reminder that that is the way she should look and the mirror shows her that she doesn’t look like the model, right back to comparing ones self to another. I think breast are shown in the media as a sex object that you must have if you want a guy to be interested in you. So by the picture, I get from the girl staring at her boobs that she isn’t happy with the size and wants them to be bigger because it shows her stuffing her bra. Women try so hard to fit their gender roles and think only Barbie’s are pretty. The Glass slipper effect is the perfect example because it states “ feminism is dead”, meaning women need to learn how to catch and keep a man. And apparently a model with big boobs can most defiantly do that in today’s society. Females put themselves at risk by dieting and not eating. The book on the counter “ The south beach diet”, shows that this girl is most likely not happy with her original body and believes she needs this diet to look like the model. This can take things to the extreme and be very dangerous. I did notice the picture wasn’t clear and had marks on it to show that this girl has flaws, imperfections and very low self-confidence. The “Ideal Image” alone shows that if you don’t look like a model or wear makeup your not beautiful. Beautiful in society is the new fake.
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