It was interesting to think about what we discussed this week: hegemony, false consciousness etc. And I realized how deeply those ideas embedded in our everyday lives and how much they are constructed by media.
What we think is beauty is different from culture and culture, and it changes constantly.
For example, in old days in China, having small feet was considered to be a beautiful woman. People in the society in those days thought women with small feet are beautiful and they believed if a woman does not have the small feet, she can not marry a man. So the young women have the custom to bind their feet up so tightly that they can prevent their feet from growing up. It was their custom; it was the common sense for them to do it.
In today's society, our predominant perception to the beauty is considerably influenced by media.
When you look at mirror what do you see? Many people, especially women, might find they are not perfect enough because what they think is perfectly beautiful is the feminine images of models or celebrities we see through media. The fashion and beauty industries use those images to make women perceive what the beautiful women look like and render them unsatisfied with their own beauty. When women see the feminine images on fashion magazines, films, or ads on TV, they are impelled to achieve the beauty of the images on media, but they are hardly conscious that the beauty on the images is manipulated by many professionals like make up artists, photographers, lighting technicians, and finally it is even enhanced on computer. Women have a strong desire for the "perfect" beauty, hegemonic standards of feminine beauty, manipulated by the media.
For instance, how many women go to a tanning salon or expose their skins to the sunlight to have such a "perfect" brown skin we find on media images even though many of them know that it is not good for their health: increasing the risk of skin cancer and contributing to their skin aging? Giving many images of women with a nicely tanned skin as beautiful ideals, media makes women have a false consciousness about beauty and make them go to salons or buy the product which they think will help them to look like the models and stars.
Thinking about what the beautiful women are like, I realize that many women are obsessed with the fantasy of beauty that media created. Media makes women recognize their imperfection and drives them to try to pursue the perfection that the media standardized.
The images are from http://nivmedia.com/2007/05/21/photos-of-foot-binding-an-ancient-chinese-custom/
www.jessicafans.org/
http://forums.interbasket.net/f10/the-hottest-wife-girlfriend-in-rp-5889/
No comments:
Post a Comment