The sub point I chose to focus on in my picture was how unrealistic expectations of beauty standards affect adolescent girls. In this picture it shows a before and after picture of a rhinoplasty that I underwent a year ago. In the photo on the right which is the before photo, my nose has a bump in it. This is something that society sees as not perfect, and ascetically unpleasing on a women’s face. In the picture on the right which is the after picture, you can see there is no longer a bump from my side profile. This is seen as much more ascetically pleasing on a women’s face, and is seen as what someone’s nose should look like in order to be considered attractive. This picture illustrates how the influence of media puts pressures on young women, and adolescent girls to conform to things such as perfecting parts of their body such as their nose. The camera angles in these pictures are up close, and personal because the main focus is on my nose, and how drastically it changed before and after surgery.
Girls from a very young age see models, actresses, and even cartoon characters portrayed with seemingly perfect bodies, and perfect facial features, and think that is what they need to look like in order to feel pretty. These unrealistic body expectations, and facial features that girls try to obtain often cause girls to develop things such as anorexia, or body dimorphic disorder. You can see a lot of similar themes of this topic in the photo essay “Girl Culture” by Lauren Greenfield. A majority of the pictures shown in this photo essay are of young girls trying to conform to these beauty standards. In one of the pictures it shows Lisa who is thirteen years old surrounded by magazine cut outs of different celebrities. Lisa in the picture is shown looking distraught, and overwhelmed by the many images surrounding her. Lisa also makes a point of saying, “"There is so much peer pressure. I mean, not with drugs or cigarettes or anything, but with the fact that everybody has to look the same”. Young girls like Lisa, and myself felt, and still feel societal pressures so look the same as everyone else so we can be seen as pretty, or normal. Another picture in Greenfield’s photo essay that was very much like mine was that picture of the women in Miami who underwent a breast augmentation. Plastic surgery has become such a big part of American culture because of all the people trying to achieve the perfect body, and face.
Work Cited
“Http://Www.avensonline.org/Fulltextarticles/JSUR-2332-4139-S1-0001.Html.” Journal of Surgery, 2015, pp. 01–07., doi:10.13188/2332-4139.s100001.
1 comment:
From: Alana
Close to the end of this caption Elizabeth stated, “Young girls like Lisa, and myself felt, and still feel societal pressures to look the same as everyone else so we can be seen as pretty, or normal”. I myself relate to that statement as I suffer from self-esteem issues every day. Of course, whenever I tell people that I am insecure they say, “Oh you’re crazy” or “Stop it your beautiful”, which their kindness means a lot to me, but it does and will not stop the self-esteem struggle I deal with daily. When people look at me they see beautiful long brown hair, big chest, bright green eyes, and clear skin. What people do not see is my not so perfect thin body that has stretch marks and cellulite, or my vitiligo that takes over half my face. Why is it fair that us girls with flaws in our body must overlook all our other perfect features just because we have one teeny tiny flaw in ourselves. Who decided what was a perfect body and what defined someone as beautiful. As young girls we watch celebrities who are deemed as these perfect beautiful role models when their “perfect” appearance comes from photo shop, surgery, and their face being covered in $600 worth of makeup. When I was younger one of my shows to watch was Americas Next Top Model. I loved watching those girls get all dolled up and hyped up by Tyra Banks when they took a perfect picture. No matter how much I loved that show and watching those girls strut down the runway I never forgot that I wouldn’t be “Next Top Model” material because of my body and discoloration on my face. It wasn’t until recently that I came across a Canadian model Winnie Harlow who also has severe vitilogo on her skin. This gave me tremendous hope for little girls with vitilogo to grow up knowing that it is okay to be different. Girls who have minor flaws should grow up learning about ways that make girls different from others, and that having a skinny body, with a beautiful face is not the only body type deemed as normal and pretty to society. Mental/ Physical disability, body shape, skin type, hair color, or skin color does not define you the “normal expectation” of a woman. The only thing that should really matter is your heart, personality, and kindness as a human being.
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