Miss Representation Summary

In Miss Representation, many female actresses, news anchors, politicians, directors and producers talk about how females suffer a lot of social, political and economic inequalities in today’s society. There are double standards against women in magazines, on TV, in movies, the news, politics, and the workplace. The media is an influential part of modern culture. When women are portrayed as objects for men to use -- never as the protagonist or president -- and when female news anchors are objectified, this will cause girls of all ages to begin viewing themselves as objects. Girls grow up in a world where their voice does not count; where our culture does not embrace them in all of their diversities, where

This creates a time where women are constantly reminded of the "importance" of focusing on their looks rather than their abilities. Women are almost always trying to live up to this beauty standard set by men and it becomes exhausting. The media negatively impacts women's self-confidence, along with creating a harmful environment for these women. These quotes from Miss Representation represent the trend of the media putting women's appearance before the real purpose of their

In history books, males are always presented as the leaders of the United States. It has become a stereotype that men are the leaders in politics and business, but as the world has advanced, there has been a need for women representatives and leaders. In the documentary Miss Representation, “The U.S. in the world is 90th in terms of women in the national legislature”(Newsom 2011). The reason why the U.S. is 90th is because as the media has become a more powerful influence in the United States, women are experiencing more backlash from becoming leaders. The media is causing the U.S. to lag behind in the world’s progression of women leadership.Women should be able to rise up as leaders in America without discrimination from the media or faulty views of

The argument of The Beauty Myth is that as women have received more eminence, the standard of their personal appearance has also grown. Wolf’s position on the issue is that this type of social control is potentially just as restrictive as the traditional roles of women. The Beauty Myth discusses how society’s viewpoint of beauty is detrimental to women because it causes many emotional and psychological problems to women who strive to become “perfect”. This book is important due to the fact it raises awareness to the issues that many young women are currently facing.

Miss Representation is a doctomuntry that anlzes the way in which media socializes young girls and boys and how the ideas presented effect politics, education, violence, and every aspect of their daily lives. One of the major ways that stereotypes are silenced is by exposer to people who embody those stereotypes. Unfornatually, most people are limited in their exposer. While there are circumstances when you can choose the diversity of your situation, it is not always the case. In many cases, mainly as children, you can’t always choose your nabjors or classmates.

Argument Found in Miss Representation: The media should not only represent women and girls for their beauty but also for their intelligence. Agree: When women do something that presents a women’s intelligence people do not give it the amount of attention they would give if it was a picture of a celebrity on the new released magazine cover. When the media only focuses on the appearance it teaches girls at a young age that their value/ worth depends on that. By representing girls and women just for their beauty teaches boys that a girl’s appearance is the only thing that is important about them. Mothers see how the world treats young girls and they are frightened for their daughters and try to teach their sons to treat women with more respect.

Through the media society puts out high standards and expectation on women to adhere to what they say is beautiful. Making women judge mental and self consciousness about themselves and even judging other woman in a split second. In the book Mrs. Breedlove speaks on the affect the movies had on her,”She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it with some category in the scale of absolute beauty, and the scale was one she absorbed in full from the silver screen” (122). This explains how the media can cause society to be judgmental among their peer and categorize them as either beautiful or ugly. Giving society room to isolate and antagonize the ugly and adore and idolize the beautiful.

Throughout Miss Representation, there were many arguments about how women are portrayed in the media. There will never be an equal balance of people who are content with what goes on and how women are seen in this world. According to the documentary, the media is important because it relays information quickly and it is the fastest information source out there. Today, the media is very easily accessible being in everyone back pockets. Technology has made it so easy to manipulate everyone’s minds and make people think they have to be someone they are not.

After viewing Miss Representation, I was filled with anger, frustration, and sorrow at the discriminating portrayal of women highlighted by popular media and culture. I find this topic very thought provoking and realize that this topic is always going to be controversial and highly disputed. Women are often characterized in the media in roles traditionally given by society, portrayed as submissive and passive, mothers or sexual objects. The film paints the impact of mass media on the idea of “Ideal Beauty” for women, through movies, magazines, television shows and video games. The media has greatly impacted the thoughts and opinions, which is seen as the norm by societies where gender equality is far from reality. Miss Representation discusses the aspect of the female roles in politics and leadership. Our society is governed by the immense power of the mass media and the media has the potential to reverse this concept as it has imposed it. The current message that our young men and women receive is that a “woman’s value and power lie in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her capacity as a leader.” The whole idea of "Ideal Beauty" has numerous harmful outcomes. The film debates about how women have made great advances in leadership in the last few decades. It remarks how the United States is still 90th in the world for women in terms of nationwide legislatures, women hold only 3% of positions in mainstream media, and 65% of women and girls are

in the way women are portrayed in modern culture and society. The documentary forces us to

Researchers have discovered that “ongoing exposure to certain ideas can shape and distort our perceptions on reality.” (Mintz 2007) Because young girls are subjected to a constant display of beautiful people in the media, they have developed a negative body image of themselves. Those who have a negative body image perceive their body as being unattractive or even hideous compared to others, while those with a positive body image will see themselves as attractive, or will at least accept themselves and be comfortable in their own skin. During adolescence, negative body image is especially harmful because of the quick changes both physically and mentally occurring during puberty. Also, young girls are becoming more and more exposed to the media and the media keeps getting more and more provocative. Young girls are looking to women with unrealistic body shapes as role models. It’s hard to find, in today’s media, a “normal” looking

Over the years a debate over who is to blame over the decline in how girls perceive themselves has arisen. With Photoshop being the societal norm concerning the media, it has become difficult for many to understand where the line between real and near impossible standards lies. Youths see an image edited to “perfection” and strive to reach the standards that they imagine due to the images displayed on magazines, television and social media. From Disney to magazines like Vogue the mass media bombards audiences with fake beauty that they, as normal people, will never be able to achieve. The mass media is responsible for causing the rise in the number of people with a poor body image, eating disorders, and cosmetic surgeries.

women that sends the wrong message to young girls and boys. After watching this documentary,

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.

Also, by the time average American girls are thirteen years old, 53% of them are unhappy with their bodies. This percentage exceeds to 78% when girls reach the age of seventeen as a result of being exposed to the body ideals in the media. Similar to this, Cohen cited Signorelli (1997) who states that 56% of advertisers use beauty as a product appeal and their targeted audience, most of the times, is teen girls. Girls are exposed to these emphasized beauty images at a very young age, thus self-image is reveals to them early and continues well on even after their teen years, and can inhibit eating disorders and excessive exercising in