Britney Spears, sex, and the ‘perfect’ image-These all seem to be the things that pop to mind when one thinks of the media. In recent years the media has turned the ‘perfect’ image into something that can now be considered crass, crude, and overtly sexual.
Open up any big name magazine like Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, or even Dolly and you’re guaranteed to find a half-naked woman lying on top of some man dressed in Versace, clutching a half-full glass of scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other. And if not that then something very close to it.
Flip a few more pages into that magazine and you’ll see pop icons acting overtly sexual, only in panties and a beaded necklace.
It seems that this or even the sight of a bikini-clad model lying on a shiny, red sports car is considered by the media to be a norm.
This is a scary thought to most. But Britney Spears and those like her, gyrating, and singing in revealing, low-cut clothing are a part of today’s society. And they get paid for it. The problem with this is that millions of very young, and very impressionable girls are buying their albums, and mimicking that very look and those very sexy dance movements.
It is these girls that are growing up assuming that they should look, act, and dress like their favourite pop icons, actresses, or the models they see in magazines.
This is a concern to Dr Katharina Dulckeit, who believes that the media is to blame for how children and teenagers act and perceive how they should be in today’s society.
“We live in a society where children have become accustomed to these blatant displays of sexuality, and this can’t be blamed on them but the media, as it is the media that has accepted it as a norm.”
Dulckeit believes the media has brainwashed people into seeing only outward appearances over other qualities such as intelligence and personality.
“Sadly a person’s individual intelligence, character, and moral worth play not the slightest role in whether they should be made into a role model. The media is more concerned about the amount of skin that is bared, and the more the better.”
The treatment of women as sex objects has never been so blatant these days, especially with magazines like FHM, and Ralph. These magazines bill women alongside toys, sex and cars as entertainment for men. This objectifies women and reduces them to nothing more than something that men can play with and discard whenever they feel like it.
Unfortunately it is not only just men’s magazines that are doing this. Cosmopolitan claims to be a magazine that empowers women, and is supposed to be a women’s magazine written by real women.
Yet it write articles like ‘man manual’ and ‘how to please your man in 50 different ways’; articles that treat women as if they are sex objects, put on this earth only to please a man.
Every day we see these pop stars, models and actresses adorning magazine covers. We, as a society revere them for their natural beauty, and what we perceive to be the ‘perfect’ image.
According to Sydney makeup artist Lila McGuiness what we’re not seeing is the hours that are taken to make these women look flawless.
“Actually the look isn’t all that natural when you think about it. If you look at any of these photo shoots you’ll see that this so-called natural beauty, is controlled by lighting, perfect positioning, stylists who find the most flattering outfit and then makeup.”
In most cases Lila says that the photos are then digitally enhanced with all blemishes, scars, wrinkles and discoloration’s erased. And it doesn’t even stop there.
“It also means that breasts can be lifted, and enlarged, skin enhanced with a glow, cheeks blushed, stomach muscles added and fat cropped out. They can even change the outfit, as they did with Meg Ryan, if they don’t like the result. Anything is possible. And it’s the norm.” says Lila.
The media, when portraying the ‘perfect’ woman doesn’t take into consideration how ‘normal’ women and teenage girls feel when they see this image, or how they see themselves. More often then not they are made to feel self-conscious even if they have nothing to be self-conscious about.
Through the media, advertising agencies and fashion designers have helped to breed insecurity and self-abuse by suggesting that only the wasted look is desirable. But this isn’t a new situation. The visual aspects of the media can influence from an early age. And it all started with Barbie.
One of the biggest dilemmas facing Barbie is that the current figure is setting a negative stereotype for children in society.
Not only does Barbie depict what society considers the perfect figure but she also has everything that a little girl might dream of. However her body sends the message that if you’ve got the body you get the guy, the beach house and the pink corvette.
This is a problem, when 90 percent of the Western girls aged between three and eleven own Barbie dolls and live in a world where Barbie and fairytale princesses are their main role models.
They play with them unaware of the underlying messages that these figures contain.
Raising Women editor Debi Stagg says it is Barbie, with her ridiculously tiny waist, enormous breasts, and long, slender legs that is sending out the wrong message to young girls about what is the perfect image.
“It’s not just Barbie but fairytale characters that are relying on their looks to attract a handsome mate because they believe that they need a man to take care of them. Take Sleeping Beauty for example, she goes to sleep, doesn’t age and doesn’t wake until Prince Charming kisses her. It’s all sexual and giving children the wrong message. It says I’m a helpless dumb woman, who needs a man to make her life complete.” Debi says.
But even before females reach their teenage years, many of them have forsaken Barbie and fairytales and are instead absorbing highly sexualised images that surround them.
“In a sense they are trading the ideal messages sent by Barbie dolls for the sexual images that display real-life Barbie dolls and models as their ideals. It’s sick. Because when many young girls hit puberty they are scared of gaining weight and not being ‘perfect’ ” says Debi.
Advertisers play a major role in this. They often emphasise sexuality and the importance of physical attractiveness in attempt to sell their products but this is a growing concern because of the pressure that is placed on not only women but also men to focus on their appearance.
Advertising agencies may adversely impact women’s body image, which can lead to unhealthy behaviour in women and girls striving for the ultra-thin body idealised by the media.
In an International Poll done by advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi it was found that 27% of young women believe that the media pressures them to have the perfect body and it was found that ads made women fear that they were too unattractive and old.
On average women see 400-600 advertisements per day, and by the time a woman is 17 years old she has received over 250,000 commercial messages through the media.
Only Nine percent of those messages have a direct statement about beauty but many more emphasise the importance of beauty.
This constant exposure to female-orientated advertisements can influence girls to become self-conscious about their bodies and obsess over their physical appearance as a measure of their worth.
Advertisements emphasise thinness as a standard of female beauty, and the bodies idealised in the media are frequently atypical of normal, healthy women.
Statistics show that today’s fashion model weighs 23% less than the average female and young women between the ages of 18-34 have a seven percent chance of being as slim as a catwalk model and a one percent chance of being as thin as a supermodel.
This same study shows that magazine models influence 69% of teenage girls’ ideas of what is the perfect body shape, and the pervasive acceptance of this unrealistic body type creates an impractical standard for the majority of women.
Women frequently compare their bodies to those they see around them, and researchers have found that exposure to idealised body images lowers women’s satisfaction in their own appearance.
This is a growing concern, as the health industry believes that the depiction of thin models may lead teen girls into unhealthy weight control habits because the image they seek to copy is one that is not only unattainable but also unhealthy for many girls. A study found that 47% of girls were influenced by magazine pictures to want to lose weight but only 26% of these girls were actually overweight. Research has also found that stringent dieting to achieve the ‘perfect’ body can play a key role in triggering eating disorders.
According to Dr Katharina Dulckeit girls who are dissatisfied with their bodies show more dieting, anxiety and bulimic symptoms after prolonged exposure to fashion and advertising images in a teen girl magazine. And this can cause women in their teens and twenties to begin smoking in order to control their appetites.
“It’s very difficult for teens to develop healthy attitudes towards sexuality and body image when much of the advertising aimed at them is filled with images of impossibly, thin, fit, beautiful and highly sexualised young people. The underlying market message is there is a link between physical beauty and sex appeal, popularity and material success.”
Fashion marketers like Calvin Klein, and Guess use provocative marketing campaigns featuring young models. These ads sell more clothing to teens but in the process are also selling adult sexuality and the thin look.
Everywhere women go they are bombarded by the media’s idea of the perfect body. This unrealistic stereotype is portrayed in music videos, movies, magazines, and on television. They kept banging out the same message, to teen girls especially, that they are not thin enough, or pretty enough. Millions of dollars each year are spent on diet regimes, supplements and exercise equipment. These are purchases made mainly by healthy girls who are plagued with feelings of inferiority.
Messages that imply that young girls are not good enough the way they are, and that they have to have the product being sold to fit in, can cause various eating disorders, suicide and drug use in young girls and women. That is because they then feel that they struggle to measure up to that image.
Louise* is one young woman that understands the effects of advertising and the constant portrayal of the ‘perfect’ image.
Diagnosed with anorexia at 18, she says it all started through not feeling beautiful enough, and then not thin enough. She truly believed that for her to be beautiful she had to be thinner. At only 55 Kilograms this was a danger to her already slender body, as she constantly refused to believe that she was thin.
“There are ads that tell you how you should dress and what you should look like and then they say ‘but we respect people for what they choose to be like.’ Okay, but which one do I do first?”
Louise says that almost every magazine she picked up had the ideal female body and face selling their product. They focused constantly on diets and other beauty enhancing products, and every time she read them she felt inferior.
“Reading articles on how to apply the perfect make-up and what to do to make myself look gorgeous made me wonder what was wrong with my hair, my body and my skin. I just felt abnormal and ugly.”
Vivian Hanson-Meehan, Founder of the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Other Associated Disorders says that advertisers make money off women’s insecurities without thinking of the consequences of it at all.
“Magazines reflect images of thinness and beauty, and link them to other symbols of happiness, love and success for women, and this can be a real danger. Unfortunately this advertising works because women and girls never feel that they are perfect, especially after they see the ‘perfect’ image for so long, and feel that in order to be beautiful, popular or fashionable they have to fit this image.”
She says that young women are tired of feeling second rate because they can’t match the ‘perfect’ image seen so often in the media, that to obtain the ultra thin look many young women restrict their food intake. Sometimes they take drastic measures and in doing so disorders can develop, such as Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa.
“Anorexia Nervosa generally starts between 12-18 years, and is characterised by restrictive food intake, weight loss and excessive exercise. Up to one percent of adolescent girls develop it. Another eating disorder is Bulimia Nervosa, which is the binge/purge syndrome. It typically can develop between 16-20 years of age. Three percent of teenage girls develop this disorder.”
Hanson-Meehan concedes that it’s not just the media but also a young woman’s immediate surroundings such as her family and friends that can trigger Anorexia and Bulimia but believes that the media contributes to a large part of this.
She believes that the media and other prosaic sources, including the weight loss industry, have a responsibility to redefine the parameters of external beauty, and to represent every body type.
“Promoting healthy eating and self-acceptance is a much more positive and a constructive message to convey to the world rather than sexuality and thinness. We need to convey that external attractiveness is skin deep and that we should all look within our souls to discover our real true beauty.”
