Instagram Body Image

The way the female body is presented in Disney produced films represents current socio-cultural assumptions of what the female body should look like (Johnson). These princesses reflect social standards of beauty. To be beautiful you must be young, thin, attractive, and elegant.

The portrayal of women, gender roles and stereotypes in Disney films has long been a controversial topic. Disney’s 1959 animated film, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, and Robert Stromberg’s 2014 live action remake, ‘Maleficent’, each provide a different take of Charles Perrault’s 1697 fairy tale, ‘La Belle au bois Dormant’ (‘The Sleeping Beauty’). The comparison of Aurora, one of the main characters from both films, brings into light the stark contrast in portrayals of gender roles as well as physical ideals and stereotypes in women. Emphasis or lack thereof on physical characteristics and gender representation from both texts challenge and reflect ideals and stereotypes that are impactful to the audience.

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.

We all in some point of our lives been, so delighted with a fairy tale movie or a book, but do not think about the drastic consequence it is portraying on having an ideal body image? Over, the decades we have seen how fairy tales have impacted every individual. From having our great grandparents to our parents reading and watching fairy tales at a very young age. Fairy Tales have been a great phenomenon for a very long time. With the making of Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel, and much more loved by many people. As time his passing, people are realizing that fairy tales are affecting young girls at a very young age. Targeting mainly their body image. Body image is really important for many girls because they need to be up to date with the fashion trends society is putting out there. Now, a day’s many Fairy Tales movies are being created in looking slim, pretty, blonde, long beautiful dress, and perfect with no imperfection. In creating these false expectations on how a girl is supposed to look is drastically changing their minds. Also, is affecting their self-esteem in being low, due to not being satisfied with their body. Young girls want to be a princess because they have everything and receive all the attention. Having the characteristic of a princess is changing girls in evolving a false identity. In having a perfect body like a princess is causing other girls to not fit in because they do not fit in the category of perfect. Although, some accept

In “Barbie Doll” the author Marge Piercy uses imagery to portray a young girl who is unhappy with the way she looks. For instance, in the following lines “She was healthy, tested intelligent, possessed strong arms and back, abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity. She went to and fro apologizing. Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs,” (Piercy, 1936) although she possessed several good qualities, the only thing that stood out to her was her nose and legs.

The Disney Princess Effect I felt as though the text related to me in regards to being a little girl and recalling exactly what the author is pertaining to. Going through the stages of wishing to be a princess or waiting for your prince to arrive for the simple fact of the visual enchantment television gave and then sooner or later growing up to only realize fairy tales and reality beg to differ. In the beginning, Stephanie Hanes writes “She came to believe that the $4 Billion Disney Princess empire was the first down a path of scarier challenges, from self-objection to cyberbullying to unhealth body image.” Having dealt with my own perseverance with body image I agree with Hanes and how the falsified happiness hammered into young girls is hindering. If we were to allow them to grow freely and not in a mold of what society perceives as beautiful we would have more intelligent, confident and free women. The problem is the hidden message Sleeping Beauty for example Aurora is described as an extraordinarily beautiful woman, so young girls will understand, even if they are not directly told, that is what society perceives as beautiful. If you have ever seen “Sleeping Beauty,” however, you will notice that Aurora’s figure is as impossible as Barbie’s for humans to achieve. Unfortunately, this is not isolated just to “Sleeping Beauty.” All of Disney’s princesses, and even some of the female villains, are impossibly proportioned, and the ones who are not, like Ursula of “The

I certainly believe that traditional fairy tales idealized beauty. They all resemble beauty in its magnitude. Princesses are all characterized by their beautifully perfectly shape round, big beautiful eyes, flawless skin, shiny, long, beautiful straight hair, and an enviable waist. Oh, and their prince? So handsome and muscular! So perfect! Of course they idealized beauty! There is no doubt about it! It is unfortunate, though. It is unfortunate because “media images depict the high value of appearance in our society, and influence youths’ conversations about ideal body image” and as a result to this, today we have kids that are dieting at seven or eight years of age. Girls and boys believe that in order to be “popular” for instance, they

In this literature review, I investigate existing scholarly writing in the areas of Instagram, Social comparison theory through the media, and low self-esteem due to body images on social media. Scholarship in each of these areas provides the groundwork necessary for me to conduct my own research in which I ask the question, “What are the social comparisons of Instagram and low self-esteem of body image pertaining to young girls?”

For my final paper where we had to pick a topic from current popular culture, I decided to write my paper with the focus on Disney movies. More particularly with the focus on the Disney princess movies. When it comes to the Disney movies they have always been and will always be such a huge part of our society. While growing up most children grow up watching these movies and get the idea that that is what they want to be when they grow up. When you ask a young girl what she wants to be when she is older there is a good chance that she will say that she wants to be a princess when she grows up. I have always been such a huge fan of Disney movies and I have a feeling I always will be. I found it very interesting this semester when we spend the short class period talking about the Disney female and male characters. It is rather interesting and something that I can say that I really never noticed before but the fact that the majority of all the female characters all had the same face shape. Whereas the males there were none two that were the same. However for this paper I will be looking into the relationship to cultural meanings about gender and other identity markers, such as race, sexuality, and cultural norms as seen in some of the more classic well known Disney movies.

“Do Animated Disney Characters Portray and Promote the Beauty Goodness Stereotype” (Bazzini et al,. 2010).

Almost 30% of people in a study from Humboldt University and Darmstadt’s Technical University stated that social media pictures of their friends living the good life is motivation for them to go to shows and events more regularly. This shows that social media posts have a positive impact on a person at a micro level, through accounts that inspire confidence. For example, Natalie Bamberger keeps an active social media presence via her Instagram page. Bamberger’s posts is about embracing the hair loss and showing that beauty comes in all shapes, sizes and looks, influencing her followers and increasing their confidence. Bamberger mentions Twitter user “@bodyposipanda has inspired her to rethink how she interacts with the parts of her body she’s self-conscious about.” This is shown through the 45% of female questionnaire participants who are

In today’s society, the public is exposed to technology at even younger ages than ever before. Everywhere you go these days you see kids even as little as three holding their parent’s phones or even their own, watching videos or playing games. But as said in the article Does Social media impact on body image by Philippa Roxby, as kids start becoming teenagers their technological uses advance and they start to rely on social media sites for new sources of communication, and their main channel to the outside world. Based on studies conducted by psychologists they have come up with a conclusion that social media has a direct relationship to body image concerns. I believe that in today’s society we should focus on promoting self-confidence as most of the adolescents have a very low assurance of their own bodies. Although a study conducted in the article The Upside of Selfies: Social media isn’t all bad for kids by Kelly Wallace says that a survey which resulted in 52% of the teens saying that social media positively influences them. Even though social media platforms have some beneficial aspects such as they make people want to go on diets, exercise, and eating healthy, the teenagers don’t really look/understand the negative aspects of it. The impacts that are carried with social media are mostly negative such as fancying teenagers to lose confidence in themselves and has become a toxic mirror to them. The visual platforms impact

Social media plays a very large part in todays society. It influences most aspects of our lives. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest are all forms of social media that impact people’s daily lives. As we all live busy lives eating healthy has become extremely important. A healthy nutritious diet is a part of most peoples lives. Social media allows people to have access to the latest health food trends, recipes, blogs and information about cafes that offer these types of healthy foods. Dining out is also very popular in todays society. Healthy cafes are frequently seen on social media through people tagging themselves via Facebook and Instagram. Social media allows people to follow their favourite cafes which then gives them the opportunity to get a hold of the different food and recipes that that specific café offers. Savvy business owners use video and photography to improve their business and encourage healthy eating. Café dining has become extremely popular with the general public. Trendy hip organic cafes are very much the rave with brunch becoming the to go meal, smashed avocado has become very popular through this. The rise in this popularity can be linked to social media. People via Instagram, Facebook and Twitter have shared photos of café meals which has made a big impact on the cafes influence on our lives. I personally have accounts on many different social media sites that promote and share

Social media is often viewed as ‘friendlier’ than mass media and more ‘real.’ Posts on Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr are made by ‘real’ people. While many women have learned to recognize the inaccurate portrayals of the female body in mass media, fewer have made this connection with social media. An Instagram post can be edited, retouched, angled, and filtered to make the individual in the photo look drastically different from the way they appear in person, just as models are altered in mass media advertisements. The literature I have consulted addresses the relationship between body image and social media use but does not factor in dietary choices.

Beauty gurus also influence their audience by saying it is a fun way to express themselves and make a note that makeup is not needed to feel or appear beautiful. Many accounts embrace their flaws to the public despite the chance others can have to criticize. Not only can Instagram help create new subcultures, but it also can also allow those interactions to take place in person.