From Faith:
For my photo essay, I chose to examine the consequences of beauty standards on adolescents. In today’s society, the beauty standards placed on females is simply unattainable, leaving them grasping endlessly for something they will never reach. Mary Pipher sheds light on the issue of the unrealistic beauty standards placed on females in the video Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent girls. Pipher specifically addresses the topic of “thin culture,” and how the media influences girls to change their bodies in order to conform to certain beauty standards, often leading to eating disorders. In the video, Mary Pipher makes a very powerful statement relating to the development of eating disorders: “When we define beauty in such an unnatural way, young girls do very unnatural things to be thin (Pipher, 00:2:12- 00:2:18).” I was one of those young girls that Pipher is talking about, doing unnatural things in order to be skinny. I developed anorexia at the young age of twelve, and I have been in treatment twice since then. Those unrealistic beauty standards almost robbed me of my life, because I was willing to do whatever was necessary to achieve them- even if that meant slowly killing myself.
In the photo above, you see an image that captures the painful mark that thin culture inflicts upon many females. The first creative element used in order to better convey this message is the measuring tape around the girl’s feet, symbolizing how wrapped up females become in achieving society’s unrealistic standards of thinness. The second creative element I used is space. In the picture above, the girl does not take up the entire image, alluding to the fact that she does not have much confidence and sees herself as miniscule compared to other girls. You may also notice that the girl’s face is not shown, because to her the only thing that truly matters is whether or not she has the perfect body. The last creative element I used is the smudged and blurry lens. This represents how unclear the beauty standards are in society today. The picture of what is beautiful is constantly changing in the media, leaving girls to wonder: what does true beauty really look like?
I can tell you what true beauty really looks like. It looks like the image that stares back at you when you look into the mirror closest to you. You my friend are beautiful, and there is not one thing you need to add or take away from yourself in order to feel that you are enough. Society will always tell you that you aren’t, but the truth is simple: they thrive off of feeding you lies. So, the next time you look into the mirror and you hear one of those lies, tell that lie that there is no one in this world as unique as you- and to you, that will always be good enough.
Works Cited
Pipher, Mary. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. Media Education Foundation, 2002, https://youtu.be/OrRtJY28ps8. Accessed 21 October 2020.
2 comments:
From Brynn:
I think that this photo used the creative elements of space and symbolism very effectively. By choosing not to show the girl's face and have the measuring tape around her feet, it shows how much society focuses on the bodies of girls over the other aspects of the personality. Additionally, I think that the girl wearing some nail polish could symbolize women's beauty standards and the fact that it is chipped could symbolize that the girl is trying to reject the standards. I also like that the lens is blurry to show that it is hard to see what the beauty norms are sometimes. When I first saw the photo, before I read the essay, I thought that the reason the photo was blurry was to make it seem older. If this was the case, then the older looking photo could have symbolized that these strict beauty norms are something that girls have been experiencing for a very long time.
From Emily
This picture does speak large volumes to adolescents in today’s society. Mainly girls, but boys as well, are constantly pressured into looking “perfect”. A lot of the elements in this photo brings everything together. The first one I want to address is the measuring tape around the ankles. It’s as if the tape is tying down the girl and restricting her to fit into the societal norms of being skinny. I remember in middle school and a bit of high school always measuring my hips and thighs and waist to make sure I was still in the “correct” limits of size. It took a mental toll on me and a lot of my friends who had a similar habit because we always turned down food and worked out extremely hard just to fit our measurements. Another element that brought this photo together was the point you made about not showing the girl’s face. She is only concerned about her body being acceptable by society, not her face. In most situations, people will pay more attention to your body than your face. Many boys, not all, but many boys I have talked to or dated have only really complimented my body or make criticizing comment son my body but never called me pretty or beautiful. Unfortunately, society focuses on bodies rather than faces. It is very degrading to women because we feel as if we’re objects because we are only ever appreciated if we fit into certain standards. We are all beautiful in our own ways and I still don’t understand why we have such strict norms after so long.
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