Media has created an “ideal” body image for men and women
that society considers beautiful. The ideal body image is constantly being shown
to individuals through magazines, advertisements, television shows, etc. with celebrities
being the center focus. Society creates these high standards for body image by
constantly repeating images of celebrities who are either slim women or muscular men. It
seems that if a person obtains the “ideal” body image created by the media,
then that person is considered beautiful, and if a person doesn’t obtain the
ideal image, then they aren’t considered beautiful. Starting at a young age, girls
are exposed to these “ideal” body images through out their daily lives, since celebrities
are shown everywhere. When girls can’t reach the body goals that are accepted by
society, then they might take extreme measures in order to achieve the ideal body
goals. One extreme measure used are different diets that are very unhealthy,
and essentially do more harm than good.
In Amy Schumer’s skit, Nutritionist,
she goes to see a nutritionist who works with all of the celebrities. When Amy tries
to say an ideal body weight she wants to obtain, she’s immediately cut off by the
nutritionist who then asks her what celebrity she wants to be the same as. In
today’s society, people are constantly comparing their bodies to celebrities.
However, when we see images of celebrities, the chances that those images have
been photoshopped are high. So, it’s unfair for individuals to compare themselves
to images of celebrities because celebrities often look different in reality
than in their photos.
Later in the video, the nutritionist starts naming off different diets for Amy to choose. The different diets include The Instagram Diet, The Tapeworm Diet, or a cleanse, which according to the nutritionist is “eating anything and everything as long as you don’t swallow it.” In the end, Amy picks smoking as her diet. Today, women are trying different products and diets to lose weight. Some of the diets women try are unhealthy for them, however they either convince themselves it’s healthy or they just don’t realize how harmful it really is. Other women know how harmful the product or diet can be, but they still use it because obtaining the ideal body image is very important to them.
I agree with the fact that everyone needs to stop comparing themselves to celebrities. Celebrities have a professional team including a make-up artist and hair stylist. You also mentioned the pictures being photoshopped. No one realizes how many rounds of touch ups happen to a picture before it is used as a magazine cover. Zendaya, a famous singer and actress, just recently put up a post on Instagram that got a lot of attention. She posted a side by side picture of the original picture and the retouched picture. She posted the caption, "Had a new shot come out today and was shocked when I found my 19 year old hips and torso quite manipulated. These are the things that make women self conscious, that create the unrealistic ideals of beauty that we have. Anyone who knows who I am knows I stand for honest and pure self love. So I took it upon myself to release the real pic (right side) and I love it." Zendaya is trying to open our eyes to the media manipulating the look of women for unrealistic expectations. Coming from a celebrity herself, it helps to hear that body image should be your own self love and not a touched up picture of a celebrity. We have been talking in class comparing what it takes for a boy and a girl to get ready. We realized girls go through much more, and celebrities basically have all of the resources for this right at their fingertips. We have to realize that comparing ourselves to celebrities is too unrealistic.
ReplyDeleteOptimizing your body structure is something that can be productive when taken with a health conscious motive involved, however it seems that a major push has been made to glamorize a lifestyle unrealistic to most human beings. This is especially tragic when you consider how much the people aspiring to look this way idolize these identities, perhaps believing that the problems in their lives will dissipate given that they attain such a look. Deep down, it could be likely that these displeasures stem directly from their destructive diets, cementing these victims to an endless struggle, polarizing most valuable things in their lives.
ReplyDeleteA widescale effort needs to be made in combating these unhealthy campaigns, the likes of which may only be capable of existing within the hands of influential celebrity figures. Bodies of all shapes can be beautiful, given that people have the drive to see them that way, and I genuinely aspire to see a time where this period of self-esteem based harm can be altered by eliminating the grime that major fashion publications blindly prescribe. When peering into the media driven world surrounding a majority of venues throughout the world, these unreachable body based images exist in illustrations, film, and even music - giving the world at large a theme of these harmful concepts.
The "ideal body image" is a very current and hot topic in the world today. The media portrays the ideal women to be blonde, caucasian, and slim. The media portrays the ideal man as being brunette, tall, and muscular. The images that people in our society have in their mind of the ideal body image are based off models and celebrities. Many teenage girls grow up thinking that to be accepted, they have to look like the "other girls." Young teenage girls do not realize that the images they see of models and celebrities are photoshopped. When I have traveled to New York City, I have seen some celebrities out in public and barely recognized them from the difference in their appearance.
ReplyDeleteEven though this is such a big problem I unfortunately do not see it changing anytime soon. Magazines and publications are going to continue to photoshopping models and celebrities to compete with other competitor publications and make profit on their work. Without stopping photoshopping and perfecting the people in media, it is hard to show young, teenage girls with low self esteem how to love themselves ands accept themselves. Young girls are always going to feel inferior to these "perfected" role models of theirs that they see all over the media.
"Ideal Body Image" is something that almost all people struggle with. However, as a male, I could not even imagine what it is like to live as a woman in this world where beauty standards are set so high. Sure, the ideal male body image is to be big and muscular, but men are not held as accountable to that standard as women are to their beauty standard. Men can essentially get away with not meeting the standard of being big and muscular. This is seen in the new "dad bod" idea that has been going around. This idea is that men are still desirable while still having a figure that does not meet the big and muscular standard. However with women, the only thing that seems to be accepted as beautiful is having a large chest, small waist, and big hips. Girls are held to this standard at a very young age, as they play with barbie dolls that resemble this standard. The fact of the matter is, these standards are almost impossible to attain. Since they are impossible to attain, women are constantly fighting a losing battle. Thus, we see that women are much more willing to go under the knife to achieve these body images than men are. Its honestly a scary time for women. I am sure that lots of women feel as though they will not be accepted if they don't meet these beauty standards.
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