Chasing Beauty
Sitting in a bar a few nights ago I noticed two women sitting at a table by themselves. It wasn’t long till a group of four guys asked to join them. As the men pulled up chairs they concentrated heavily to one side of the table. It didn’t take long to figure out they were all pining after the more attractive of the two women. Why does the pretty woman get all the attention and free drinks, and her homely friend blends into the wallpaper? We all know attractive people get treated better. It’s so ingrained in human evolution to chase after attractive qualities, and it shapes our every day lives.
Advertising is a good example of our affinity for beauty. Magazines, television, billboards, and Internet pop up ads use attractive people to sell products. We end up chasing products that we believe will make us healthier, better looking, or covers our physical flaws. They get beautiful models and actresses to make consumers think the product is what makes the models and actresses attractive. This tactic is so effective because it plays on our desire to be attractive. The more attractive we are the better sexual mates we can attract. Martial arts expert Chuck Norris endorses a home workout product called the Total Gym. We see Chuck Norris using the product in the commercials, yet it had nothing to do with the level of fitness he achieved. It doesn’t matter though. We see the extremely fit man using a product so we think if we use it as well we to can be in that kind
Despite the struggle of dominance, the constant focus of beauty versus ugly offers another obstacle in a relationship. People are more complacent when embraced by others similar to them. It is another human nature tendency.
Everyday people stare at billboards, magazine covers, movies, television, or pictures on the Internet of someone or something that they classify as beautiful. Some things people glance over and other things fascinate them. For example, when Farrah Fawcett’s famous picture of her in her red bathing suit came out; many teenage boys hung that picture in their bedrooms. Their idea of Farrah’s beauty was based strictly her outward appearance.
Beauty standards evolve as people do and are based on the need to procreate. Human beings have been adorning themselves with products to look for appealing for thousands of years. The serious problem we haven't addressed are the subversive messages our corporate owners inculcate us with through media. The hijacking of beauty standards is corporate means to an end. Putting a good looking plus sized woman on the cover of a popular magazine doesn't solve the relative that we are inculcated with falsity.We aren't tackling the root
Have you ever thought of what true beauty means? In the article “Pop Culture Is Destroying True Beauty” by Rachel Drevno, she explains how pop culture and the media are influencing people to believe that they aren’t good enough because they don’t look a certain way. The beauty Drevno discusses are the actors and celebrities in commercials, movies, and magazines. She believes that people are trying and changing themselves to look like those in commercials or movies because that’s how standard beauty has been portrayed. I strongly agree with her argument because the media only presents images of attractive, beautiful, and sexy figures.
As women watch these ads , they gain a sense of ambition to want to be as beautiful as the lady promoting the product. In the truth about beauty, an article written by Virginia postrel, it reveals an average woman in a photo, the woman goes through countless layers of make-up and hair transformations, after this another photo is taking. Then, technology programs that manipulate the picture until the woman was absolutely stunning were used on the photo. This is an example of how cosmetic companies give women a false sense of hope through advertisements, They are using beautiful women to promote a product and tell how great it works for them when in reality the women have yet to use the products.The media tends to capitalize on the insecurities of the people. A quote from Susan Bordo's "the empire of image in our world of bodies " demonstrate how the media use beautiful women with perfection in the areas that most women are uncomfortable with to highlight those insecurities " im 56 . The magazines tell me that at this age i can still be beautiful. -they mean cher, goldie , faye,candace. ( The Media takes these women who are generally in the same age group as Susan and exploits her insecurities turns around tries to capitalize on them by using these beautiful women as
What makes someone beautiful? This striking question has always had a complex answer rather than simple. Society makes their interpretation of beauty with many standards that qualify for the “most beautiful people” in the world. America's picture of the perfect lady is extremely thin however full figured. America’s picture of the perfect gentleman is also thin, yet very fit. It’s always one thing or the other, never one choice. The public has their own particular rendition of what beauty looks like, yet american beauty happens to have a stance amongst the most startling standards. These standards of beauty that women see each day impact their confidence and self-esteem negatively only to push them to discover ways to fit into these unrealistic beauty criterias. Beauty standards in America are ever-changing, but society has yet to absolutely accept the average, everyday woman.
Beauty standards are portrayed everywhere: on magazines, social media, ads, commercials, and even flaunted among peers. While the ideals are supposed to promote health awareness, fitness motivation, and self love, it unfortunately results in many unfavorable consequences. Women are constantly “penalized for not being beautiful and at the same time are stigmatized, even pathologized, for not feeling beautiful, for having low self-esteem, for engaging in behaviors like dieting and excessive exercising, or for having eating disorders” (Johnston and Taylor 954). Beauty standards are unrealistic and unhealthy to pursue, and misinforms the public on what true beauty is. While not all beauty image ideals promote negative feelings and dissatisfaction, many believe that the negative effects far outweighs any positive effects.
I would describe the pretty girl as the main character’s evolution of perfection. The emotions the main character has for her changes his perception on what he thought was beauty. What was first was simply physical attraction turned to an overwhelming desire to possess the pretty girl. Very cell in the main characters body would reminisce on the times he would see the pretty girl. To the main character the pretty girl became something much more meaningful, she became an entity that represented all his desire in a human form. His relationship with the pretty girl represents an unbreakable shield that keeps trying to be pierced by the sword of time and distance. I think she is the one and only person that can make the main character truly feel
Advertising uses a lot of different techniques to show the public the perfect female image. Body doubles and computer retouching are two examples of how advertisers are able to “doctor” images. The majority of women we see in magazines, music videos. and movies do not appear in reality, as we perceive them in the media. We may actually believe we are looking at one woman’s body when we are actually looking at sections of three or four women’s bodies, which, when spliced together, shows us the best parts of each women’s body as the final product. Women cannot attain these impossible standards of attractiveness. Young girls learn very quickly that they must spend much time, energy, and money on achieving these standards.
The main reason the word beauty has been used to describe external features rather than internal ones, so much more in the recent years, is the media. The media has evolved into something extremely influential, and the most clear message people recive from this, is what they are supposed to look like. For instance, magazines often create young girls who believe that thin as paper models seen in any magazine are what they are supposed to look like. Also, another component adding to the superficial terms people have are the celebrities that we idolize who are coached to not have even one single hair out of place; all those celebrity’s with perfect skin, hair, and body have been accomplices in the media’s outrageous spread shallow opinions. The outcome of the media’s bar being set so high is people all around doing whatever necessary to preserve their physical appearance regardless of the effect it has on their health or bank accounts.
It 's not a mystery that society 's ideals of beauty have a drastic and frightening effect on women. Popular culture frequently tells society, what is supposed to recognize and accept as beauty, and even though beauty is a concept that differs on all cultures and modifies over time, society continues to set great importance on what beautiful means and the significance of achieving it; consequently, most women aspire to achieve beauty, occasionally without measuring the consequences on their emotional or physical being. Unrealistic beauty standards are causing tremendous damage to society, a growing crisis where popular culture conveys the message that external beauty is the most significant characteristic women can have. The approval of prototypes where women are presented as a beautiful object or the winner of a beauty contest by evaluating mostly their physical attractiveness creates a faulty society, causing numerous negative effects; however, some of the most apparent consequences young and adult women encounter by beauty standards, can manifest as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders that put women’s life in danger, professional disadvantage, and economic difficulty.
Everywhere women look, all we see is a form of false beauty within the media that surrounds us on an everyday basis. When we look at women in magazines, beauty advertisements, television commercials and more we see beautiful big eyes, luscious full lips, soft, wrinkle free, poreless skin, and that intriguing radiant glow that every photo seems to have. How about the curves of the woman 's body, the shape and perfect placement of their breasts, and how every inch of their figure is always in the shape and size that we personally wish to be at; how everything about these women seem to be well… perfect in every way. Women start out young admiring the beauty that these women hold in media and
As we all know there used to be a saying that quoted “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” That particular statement is true because even though one may feel as if they see nothing beautiful in them others might feel as if they are quite charming. Individuals feel as if outer beauty is the most important because the outer beauty is more egomaniacal and arrogant. Rather we like it or not the outer beauty is what defines people, and people may believe that one’s body figure, complexion, or sophistication is what makes them alluring. They use material things to help maintain these images; which is why we see so many beauty ads. Commercials can be prejudice towards other thing or products which makes most of these commercials/ads
Women have let the idea of looking beautiful take over their self-confidence and life. Healthy Place, an online magazine teaching women about living a healthy life, says that, “today's fashion models weigh twenty-three percent less than the average female, and a young woman between the ages of 18-34 has a seven percent chance of being as slim as a catwalk model and a one percent chance of being as thin as a supermodel.” So why do women push themselves to be excessively thin when these models are anomalies? They do it because the media tells them that this look is the only look that can attract men. Even if a woman is “beautiful” according to the media’s standards, she will always find something about her body that she hates, whether it is her hair or her belly button, no women is completely satisfied. Our society is very accepting of different religions and lifestyles, so why can we not accept different types of beauty as well?
With the media being a very popular way of communication and self expression in today’s culture, it influences the way of younger generations to be more involved in today’s technology, and to allow them to influence the world by the press of a button. But one of the topics that is very controversial is that in today’s society is the high expectations of what they think a girl has to look like, from girls not having stretch marks or scars, to magazines and photographers using photoshop to convince readers that the model looks like that. With all of these being factors that there is pressure is high for many girls around the world, this has to resolved.