Tag Archives: advertising

Media’s Perfection through a Young Woman’s Eyes

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by Dusty Rose (USA, age 25)

I live in Los Angeles, self-proclaimed “Entertainment capital of the world.” Every waking morning the denizens of this overcrowded mini-state are inundated with images. Billboards on the work commute or daily walk, magazines in the grocery stores, banner ads in the email sidebar or website of choice, commercials and trailers for every conceivable product, film, and TV series.

I have lived my life so swamped by these images that I have learned to tune them out for the most part, which only prompts bigger, flashier, more attention-grabbing ones to take their place as advertisers realize we’re becoming inured to their attempts.

The few times I actually stop and look at what is being sold, I realize that it is always Perfection of some kind. If they are not directly showing you how YOU could be Perfect, they are showing you actors and actresses who set a standard for “Perfect” that few can reach naturally.

I remember growing up hating myself all the time. Before I knew the diagnosis label Trichotillomania, I was pulling out my eyebrows and eyelashes from anxiety, and would spend hours meticulously tweezing my knees because it calmed me down. When I hit puberty, skin-picking was added to the mix. The pulling and picking eased my anxiety, but directly fueled a raging self-hatred. Several passages in my old journals spew vitriolic sentences about how “Princesses don’t have scabbed and scarred faces” and “Princesses don’t have gaps in their eyelashes.” I never actually referenced Disney princesses in this, but rather the idea of Perfection that I saw everywhere and was embodied in the term “Princess.” Whatever it was, it wasn’t me, and I belonged “in the garbage with the trash.”

As I have grown, I have struggled and continue to struggle with overcoming my self-hatred. I don’t wear makeup unless I completely lose an eyebrow, and then it’s just a little eyebrow pencil. I feel shame some days, but prefer not to hide behind a mask like there’s something terrible that I must hide about my appearance.

I have also made many friends, and at least three were actively bulimic when I was with them. It was when their fingers were down their throats that I most raged at the images everywhere, the worshipped model of Perfection that made them think they were “less than.” I hated the pain my friends were in, and wished with all my heart they would see themselves as beautiful, even as I could not see myself as anything more than garbage.

If I could change one thing about how the media presents women, it would be to strip away the concept of perfection. Not that women don’t go around all day without makeup, many do. But do they wake up in Perfect eyeshadow? Do they swim with gloriously thick mascara? Is every blemish properly concealed to avoid the horrifying truth of nature? Must every single woman walk around looking like she just spent half the day in a high-end salon? And, in the vein of stripping away “Perfection” as it is known, I would add in a boatload of women in various sizes and shapes as actresses in main and supporting roles, whose role in the film is NOT to be fixed, degraded, or made fun of. I would have some struggle with their appearance, reflecting our own struggles, and I would have some rejoice in their reflections to give us some hope that we, too, can enjoy ourselves in any shape and size.

Maybe one day the standard for Perfect will be different, or maybe we will outgrow the need for Perfect. Until that day, the best thing we can do is build each other up in the places where we are constantly torn down.

Slutty Clothes for Young Girls: Irresponsible Parenting?

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I am receiving positive comments regarding the “Don’t you tell us it’s just a shirt!” slides.

But what many parents are more worried about is the “slutty” trend of clothes targeted to girls at younger and younger age: mini skirts so mini that knickers are permanently on show and mini tops so mini that nothing is left to the imagination. High heels are on the rise too and we talk about 6-8 years old sizes!

I have read also many articles regarding parents complaining to chain stores for selling inappropriate clothes to young girls (a padded bra and tongue for 4 years old was a case in point) and in many instances the complaint seemed to work, at least when there was enough collective upraising regarding a particular “unsuitable” item.

Sadly, as we know, most of these clothes are still around.

The thing is: shops are selling this kind of attire as long as there is demand for them and at this stage we would expect the parents to be the buyer of course, so… this means that there are parents around who are buying into this trend, right? Instead of labelling these parents for being uncaring or irresponsible it would be better to consider that perhaps – due to their culture/background and upbringing – they simply haven’t thought about the issue in our terms.

Some parents may think that bringing up a daughter to be a gold digger or footballer wife is indeed a good thing. Messages and slogans that some parents perceive as disempowering, may well be perceived by another class of parents as empowering: indeed, the power of female sex appeal! It all depends on perspectives and if you live your life surrounded by a raunchy culture it becomes second nature to think and act in those terms. For this reason, I don’t agree with many comments accusing parents who buy this sort of clothes being irresponsible and not caring about their daughters: the way forward should be to avoid accusations and judgements, engaging in dialogue and reflection instead.

In my view, creating resources and thought-provoking material to awaken people’s consciousness of certain issues is one way to move forward. And another way is to be open-minded and ready to start a dialogue: next time you see someone buying into the slutty trend, try to put yourself in their shoes, thinking within their own frame of reference (not an easy thing I admit), instead of dismissing them as they were not capable of thinking. I have tried this myself with a mother and the conversation we started has made me realise that my preconceptions were far from accurate 😉

Another slide for reflection today, please pass it around!

Killing Us Softly – Jean Kilbourne documentary

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I just thought I should add a link to this state-of-the-art documentary by Jean Kilbourne.

This is one of the first documentary I watched with regards to women’s sexualisation and objectification in advertising (and it remains to these days one of the best I ever watched on the topic): it has now been released in 4 different editions
Jean Kilbourne on her documentary “Killing Us Softly”.

Browsing around the web I found the comment of an American college student who had the chance to watch it as a part of the school curriculum:

“For the first time in my college career I did not fall asleep watching an in-class video. Killing Us Softly 4 by Jean Kilbourne was engaging, relatable, and just interesting all around. The film depicted the way women and men mostly women, are portrayed in the media. Kilbourne gave many examples of ads and commercials where ideals of femininity are distorted and destructive.

This generation understands that everything in the media is not necessarily realistic but this film definitely opened my eyes up to how blatant and incorrect the media is when it comes to its negative portrayal of women. Advertising depicts images and messages that are unhealthy and unrealistic perceptions of body image and sexuality. I do believe that these ads are the main reason that there is such a high rate of females with low self-esteem and suicides in females today. With the constant portrayal of women being tanned, skinny, having large assets, and long hair, females have begun to think that this is what they need to strive to become otherwise they are far from perfect. Well in reality no one is perfect and there is no one perfect body type for a woman. Women come in all shapes and sizes, which is what makes us such unique and beautiful creatures. In reality the type of women that are depicted in the media are unattainable. This is the reason why plastic surgeons are rich because women are constantly going to them to enhance something on their body. Unfortunately by making all these physical changes, women are not becoming the “perfect woman”, they are just covering up their insecurities. So in the long run plastic surgery can only do but so much; it is a short-term cure for a long-term psychological problem.

I am grateful that I was always taught to love myself for everything that I am. Truthfully when I was a teenager I did try to look like the women I saw on television or in magazines but as time went on I realized that those women are not me, and can never be me; that is why I am special and unique!” (JPalm88 – blog post, April 18th 2011)

The comment shows how, for many young women, resource like this represent a real eye-opener. I would be interested to hear comments from my readers on whether they would consider such a resource useful or appropriate in primary schools (perhaps at age 10-11): how early is too early to introduce young girls (and boys) to this analysis?

The Blue and Pink World of Marketing to Kids

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Griffiths, Merris: ‘Blue worlds and pink worlds – A portrait of intimate polarity’. In: Buckingham, David (Ed.) (2002): Small Screens. Leicester: Leicester University Press, pp. 159-184

This an interesting content analysis study detailing the strict division between pink and blue world existing today in children marketing.

Content analysis represent important studies in terms of evidencing the characteristics of adverts content, although it is only part of the puzzle: the author points out how further research is needed to investigate children actual response to advertising, especially at younger age, when their gender identity is still a shaping process (and this was precisely the aim of my PhD exploration into girls advertising experiences).

The aim of Griffiths’ paper is formulated as:

“to analyse the ways in which gender stereotyping operates on the most subtle and unobtrusive levels within toy advertisement texts, and thereby to describe and explain how the ‘gendering’ of both product and purchaser operates. An analysis of this kind demands that one look below the more obvious surface meanings of texts to the underlying structure of their ‘hidden’ (or unconscious) appeals. I intend to clarify how toy ads create a gender-polarised world for children, whilst demonstrating that the  situation is a little more complex than simple divisions between ‘blue’ and ‘pink’”.

“Of course, it should also be noted at the outset that textual analysis only identifies the parameters within which audience readings occur. How these readings occur is a matter for further research. The social worlds of boys and girls may in fact be much less polarised than the famously constructed worlds of Barbie and Action Man”

After a careful analysis the researcher concluded that the current gender segregation in marketing children toys is doing more harm than good, effectively pushing kids into pre-fabricated boxes:

“Yet when faced with a ‘packaged world it may well be that children have no option but to learn their place within it, seeing the patterns of behaviour that are represented there as unalterable fact”.

You can access the full article clicking the link below:

http://www.merrisgriffiths.co.uk/blue__pink.htm

 

 

An Excerpt from “A Woman’s Worth” by Marianne Williamson

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In this book, Marianne Williamson challenges women to see themselves in spiritual terms. Here is an excerpt on beauty.

“Feminine beauty is not a function of clothes or hair or makeup, although billions of dollars are spent in this country each year by women who have been convinced by the advertising industry that it is. Beauty is an internal light, a spiritual radiance that all women have but most women hide, unconsciously denying its existence. What we do not claim remains invisible. That is why the process of personal transformation — the true work of spiritual growth, whether couched in religious terms or not — is the only antidote to the pernicious effects of society’s backlash against genuine female empowerment. Society programs us, through the subliminal messages of popular culture, to believe that we’re not truly desirable as women unless we adhere to the current standards of physical beauty. The reason we’re such fertile ground for the dark forces of such lies and social manipulation is that we’re dissociated from the genuine light of self-awareness.

The woman who is truly self-aware knows that her self is a light from beyond this world, a spiritual essence that has nothing to do with the physical world. Those of us who strongly believe in the reality of spirit are quickly invalidated by a worldly power system that senses within spiritual truth the seeds of its own destruction. For if we truly believed in an internal light, we would not believe in the power of external forces, and we would not be so easy to dominate and control. We would not be tempted to see hair and clothes and makeup as sources of so much of our self-esteem and the ideal beauty of a fashion model as a sign that we are not beautiful at all.

In the words of Naomi Wolf, ‘We as women are trained to see ourselves as cheap imitations of fashion photographs, rather than seeing fashion photographs as cheap imitations of women.’