From: Sarah
Girl culture investigates girls’ relationships to their bodies and the ways in which they use body projects to establish their identity. We are all influenced by the things that surround us, whether it be music, television, movies, books, or magazines. Pornography is another major piece of media that impacts the way girls view themselves. We are taught to compare ourselves to the women we see in this media. In Lauren Greenfield’s statement along with her photos, she says that a suburban teenager says she would like to be an exotic dancer. Another prepubescent girl mimics the sexualized moves and revealing clothing that she has seen on MTV. These are prime examples of young girls being influenced by the exploitation of women’s sexuality in the media.
This photo was taken at a thrift store in Nashville. Your gaze falls on what is closest to the camera, which is the stand of Playboy magazines. The Playboy magazines are the main focus of the photo. The clothes behind the magazines are also important. I believe that the magazines not only represent the exploitation of women’s sexuality but also the achievement of the perfect body. The store is selling the idea of a perfect body and sexuality with the magazines while also trying to sell clothes that only run up to a certain size, as most vintage thrift stores do. It is an industry that only caters to women of a certain size.
While Playboy has contributed to a sexual revolution, it also promoted the detriment of females everywhere by normalizing the sexual objectification of women. These magazines exist solely for the benefit of men. The women were there only to serve men’s desires and were not viewed as their own person, with sexualities separate from those of the men they were designed to serve. Hefner and Playboy chose to promote the idea of women as sex objects, not as full human beings. It is enough for young girls to already see female sexuality in movies, music, and television, but the use of the Playboy magazines in the store further perpetuates these ideas that women are sexual beings.
1 comment:
From Madison
Hi Sarah!
I love how you incorporated media into your post, I also did too. In reviving Ophelia, she discussed the aspect of playboy as well. She said it was used to aid in how other magazines would pose their models to appear just like the playboy models. It’s crazy to see how playboy automatically represents how women are supposed to appear. That they have to act sexual to get attention from someone or to be skinny. The average weight of a model is 113 pounds, it’s insane. Models starve themselves to stay in that career, which leads to eating disorders and other mental health disorders. This is all just to fit the unrealistic beauty expectations that are shoved into every girls minds. I see a lot of my male friends wearing playboy attire and just want girls that appear to the perfect body.
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