For my photography assignment I chose to showcase the emotions felt by women to live up to the beauty standards set by our society. I modeled my picture after the issues described in our textbook from the section “Beauty Is a Beast”. This section of our book emphasizes the importance of physical attractiveness for women. This section states, “Women are pushed toward impossibly high standards of beauty and receive strong cultural messages that their bodies are unacceptable as they are.” The section goes on to give examples of how women go to extreme lengths to alter their bodies in order to mimic popular female stereotypes of attractiveness. These lengths include starving themselves to have the “perfect bodies” that are repeatedly seen in magazines, TV shows, and on runways. Women are willing to go through pain and suffering for the chance to feel sexy, beautiful, and wanted. Ultimately, we change ourselves and do whatever it takes in an attempt to fit in.
My photo portrays a strong sense of confusion, anger, and shame along with a lack of identity. I overlaid multiple photographs of my model to reinforce these feelings. I also chose to position her in the corner of a room to create the feeling of being trapped and restricted by our society as well as its beauty standards. The background of my photograph is made up of images of models cut from popular beauty magazines. The models shown in the background represent how women are constantly surrounded by what is seen as the ideal female image and reminded that they don’t live up to these impossible standards.
4 comments:
I feel as though the creative elements in this photo are extremely important in trying to get the point across, and they do a good job at it. Along with the "confusion, anger, and shame along with a lack of identity" portrayed with the overlapping faces, I think the blurriness of the faces all together shows how someone suffering with gender issues can go through life seeing it as a blur because all they can focus on is this problem. The photos along the wall are in order in lines showing how she's encouraged to go "in-line" with the strict standards of girl culture. The fact that the picture is black and white also ties everything together by showing that society has 2 set genders: boy and girl, which is allows no room for the "gray area" in between.
Perfection is not possible, but in this world that’s what every girl strives for because that’s what the media crams in our brains. In this picture the face is blurred because I feel she’s so confused of what direction she is supposed to be looking towards. All of these models in the magazine cut outs behind her are what we consider “perfect”, and so this girl doesn’t get a chance to look at her own beauty and appreciate it. Gender roles definition states that women should be feminine and men should be masculine, and so that’s what people grow up to be in the majority of our society. This photo of the girl really shows what women go through as they’re growing up and the anxiety that comes from trying to be this “perfect” women, when in reality perfection isn’t humanly possible.
As a result from the societal pressures on women to meet the appearance standard, a superficial façade is adopted. I think this façade, as depicted in the photo shows a bit of irony. The woman has worked so hard to meet the standard only to hide behind her hands, implying that her appearance directly causes her feelings. Those feelings being shame or embarrassment because, in the eyes of society she doesn't meet the standard. Alternatively she may feel shame or embarrassment because she has met the standard and fears a beauty relapse (becoming less attractive). Society standards are also always changing, for instance with new trends in clothing or hairstyles. I think the magazine clippings on the walls represent the constant exposure to advertisements in our society. It can be particularly distressing to keep up with these changes, as well as financially burdensome, especially since women, on average, only make 77 cents on the dollar, compared to their male counterparts, in the U.S.
I absolutely loved this photo. I think that there are a number of great points being made here. We first notice that there's not really a face, it's edited to look like she's looking a million different way. And behind her we see all these magazine pages, but in black and white. I think this is a interesting contrast to the way mass media whats to appear. It wants to be seen as this bright, colorful, and positive entity…when in reality it presents a very black and white beauty standard. You are either beautiful, or you're not.
This can have a detrimental impact on young woman.
Post a Comment