Shiki Poem By Richard Clayton Payne

People have been fighting with themselves, and with popular culture at large, for years, regarding the idea of the “perfect body.” Though it could be argued that this battle is being waged mostly by women, there has been a shift in today’s society, where the quest for the perfect body includes both sexes. And as the 20th Century marched on and became the 21st, this idea of a beautiful body became thinner, waif-like, less and less substantial, and most definitely much less healthy. In addition, in her article “Never Just Pictures,” author Susan Bordo argues fashion photography, primarily, but definitely not independently, has been scaling down and thinning out the image of idealized beauty, making it harder and harder to achieve healthily or socially. Bordo explains images, of angular beautiful models has informed all of popular culture, growing beyond merely the realms of fashion. And this, Bordo tells us, contributes to a sense of societal longing and lack of

Next is the use of color, or lack thereof. The colors in the background are very quiet and muted, mostly subdued blues and grays with hints of a deep red and brownish yellow peeking though. The colors used for the figure are browns and tans, almost as if the was painted with mud, like she is all-natural and from the earth. The range of colors would seem to have a cool tone if you were looking at them on a painter’s palette but the arrangement of color on the canvas gives the piece a warm feeling.

In this day and age, especially in American society, women and young girls are too often targeted to dislike their self image. Thanks to media, magazines, models, and society standards, the image of a normal woman has been twisted into an unobtainable image. Marge Piercy 's “Barbie Doll” perfectly defines this thought, and shadows a woman who feeds into the pressure of a superior image. Let it be noticed that this piece was written in the late 60 's, and compare the harsh and drastic change from the “perfect woman” from that day and age to now. The comparison is exquisite, seeing as the pressure was so strong in that day and age, and even more so now. The pressure for the perfect image has been and will be an ongoing race.

Once again this focal point is drawing attention to the ‘real woman’, and challenges the conventional beauty of women in this century. It also challenges the audience, about why women are not to be viewed, especially naked in their natural state, hairy, fat and imperfect for all to see. This unconventional presentation of the female body by Saville, may often cause many to turn away in disgust.

The portrayal of beauty is shaped in such a way that it caused harm to those men and women who idealize the way the media has portrayed beauty. There are tremendous influences of the media that causes an individual harm. Beauty comes with hazards because of the society nowadays and the role it plays of how women view themselves. Also, there are many disadvantages when people follow up with the way media portrays beauty. In today’s society the concept of beauty causes both psychological and physical pain to men and women.

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.

The dark green background has an interesting subtleness with lighting falling across the shoulders and side of the head. The skin tone of blues, greys and green with touches of yellow, pale peach and pink

The fashion industry plays a huge role in portraying bad images of ideal beauty, which in turn affects today’s society perception of their own body image. Not only are women affected by what is seen and heard about how the perfect body should appear, children of young ages are now feeling insecure and obsessed with their bodies before they reach teenage years. This ‘ideal image’ the fashion industry continues to enforce only focuses on very thin models who seem to be in shape and are very healthy. Furthermore, many people think of the influence from the fashion industry as being human representations (models). Because of the rising problem with the image of beauty within the fashion industry, it is shown that even mannequins and non-human representations (mannequins, dolls, photoshopping) of bodies play a significant role in women’s body image; which causes problems to the individual. (Anshutz & Engels, 2010). Body image and self-satisfaction, eating disorders and non-human representations all can cause harm to the individual, if prolonged.

Attention Getter: “In a world where a constant flow of media images far exceeds the number of women we could never see face to face, this abnormally thin and digitally enhanced feminine ideal has become the norm in our minds. A counterfeit, dangerous, unattainable norm” (Kite).

The outline of the painting is contrast of dark dull depressing colors. These colors will help make the white pop out to show some symbols. The colors on the background and the people's clothing have a mixture of blue, light blue, orange, red, and brown. This helps enhances the pale skin, the background sky, and the flying soul.

Under society’s customs for decades, young women have found themselves immersed in the pressure and anticipation to have exemplary bodies. Nearly every young woman prefers to be slim, have a perfectly shaped body, that is beautified by applying pounds of makeup to their face but does not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these measures imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model on the cover of Vogue being called flawless, naturally it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the that model. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough, our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a surging subject for young girls. Advertisements and pictures of lean female models are all over. Young women are measured and perplexed by their physical appearances with attire intended to raise their physical structures; social media, magazines, the society, marketing campaigns, advertisements, and the fashion gurus add to a strand of excellence.

The use of melancholic colors are shown as it is a dim setting as the sun begins to rise over the city street. However, the only vibrant color used throughout the piece is a bright gold yellow to illuminate the insides of the homes through the windows. Kinkade’s use of complementary colors are visible throughout. Different shades of yellow and blue are seen as there is yellow in the sky and also blue on the street. There are more cold colors than warm colors since the setting is in the morning and during the winter after it has rained. The people are dressed in winter clothes and some even have scarves on.

Appearance in today’s society has a significant impact on adolescent girls. Young women are bombarded daily with advertisements of weight loss options such as diets, surgery, and pills. Today’s culture has become overly obsessed with an unrealistic image of what beauty really means. Many works of literature are concerned with this issue as well. Two amazing works of literature that specifically considers this issue are “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy and “Hanging Fire” by Audre Lorde. Characters in both poems are compelled by society’s perception of one’s image and struggles with finding their identities. While both texts discuss the age of adolescence and how society’s attitude towards beauty impacts young girls, “Barbie Doll”

Every single day when I wake up in the morning, one of the first things I do is look at myself in the mirror. Am I skinny enough? Is my skin clear enough? Do I look like the girl from the magazine I was reading yesterday? No. I don’t. But I’ll keep asking these questions each and everyday because that is what the media tells me I need to look like. Because if my waist isn’t small enough I’m not pretty. Because if I have cellulite on my legs there’s something wrong with me. Because if I don’t slot into this unattainable standard. I'm not beautiful. Airbrushing and photoshopping models in pictures to display through media is something that frankly speaking is appalling. We are alienating beautiful human beings because of the media’s dictations on what we should look like. I am sick of being brainwashed to the point where all I can ever seem to do is single out the ‘flaws’ in myself. If we display, real, beautiful, raw pictures of people in media then so many problems caused by this would no longer exist.

This excerpt shows how more emphasis is put on women’s appearance and its keep up, and also shows the negative connotation of this prettiness; it is associated with shallowness. Not only is there an assumption that women spend much of their time on their appearance, but also there is the connected fact that others pay more attention to their appearance than their other character traits. This is still a reality of today as can be seen on the red carpet. Female celebrities have a whole industry devoted to making them look fashionable and pretty for events. The focus of these events becomes what they’re wearing rather than their work as actresses and singers.