A world where ideals of beauty constantly shift . A world where the central power gets to decide what the standard for beauty is through the media. A world where women are judged for their outward appearances and compared to the overarching base for beauty—the Western ideal. That subsists as the reality of Earth in the year 2017. Although conformity can lead to unity, the Western media’s distortion of beauty destroys all of the unique standards of beauty that different cultures have, leading many people to do plastic surgery. Though it is hard to find positive outcomes from the Western media’s biased thought of beauty, some do exist if one digs down deep. One positive effect of the reach of the Western media is that it creates unity between countries; and a unified ideal of beauty can ease hostility a bit. Also, the Western media helps with cultural exposure, letting people all over the world …show more content…
However, how is it good if in the process it completely annihilates the unique, special types of beauty different cultures have held at high esteem for centuries? Can generations of cultural beauty be disregarded just because of the effect of the media? Written in print like this, it sounds easy to ignore what the media puts out and protect each culture’s uniqueness; but that is not the kind of society the 21st century has shaped. According to author Deborah Rhode , “How someone looks can express religious and political values, as well as convey class and cultural identity” (Rhode), which means that things about people are often revealed through the way they look and dress. Although this may be true how can people express their ethnicity when they are trying their best to imitate Western looks? When doing so, their natural cultural identity becomes buried under fake layers of another culture’s beauty
A majority of the population was ugly even though the idealistic standard of beauty was far above the average person living there. Instead of tall, muscular, light, and carefree people, most ended up being dark, small, and unattractive. This relates largely in the current society because magazines portray thin to be beautiful, and until the last decade has this beauty standard started to change. When things as simple as a beauty standard are different from the current world, it allows readers to think upon the idea of living in a different
It’s an argument we’ve all heard before and there are more than a few books that have tackled the subject. But what’s different from even the last three years is just how widespread the media has become. Today’s teens spend an average of 10 hours and 45 minutes absorbing media in just one day, which includes the amount of time spent watching TV, listening to music, watching movies, reading magazines and using the internet. This is a generation that’s been raised watching reality TV – observing bodies transformed on Extreme Makeover; faces taken apart and pieced back together on I Want a Famous Face. They are, as Tina Fey puts it, bombarded by "a laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful.”
Culture is easily influenced and is constantly shifting as it passes through various racial and ethnic interactions and exchanges. “With your liberal minds, you patronize our culture, scanning the surface like vultures, with your tourist mentality, we’re still the natives. You’re multicultural, but we’re anti-racist. We ain’t ethnic, exotic or eclectic” (Prashad, 56). This refers to when cultures are commodified and picked apart without taking both the negatives with the perceived positives.
Sam Mendes’ film, American Beauty, is considered a master piece of the late 1990’s; it won several awards including Oscar’s for best picture, actor, director, original screenplay, and cinematography. The film starts by introducing the audience to the characters, and as the story continues the audience gets to witness each of the characters in the search of the American dream, whether it was Lester’s search for happiness or Carolyn’s search for wealth and success. Although the film is about people searching for the American dream, the film also challenges the idea of the American dream by suggesting that the American dream is extremely different then what we are raised to believe, instead the American dream is completely subjective and is
Ideas of what beauty should be are a simple influence by the media. These ideals can be a simple commercial that projects the image of beauty as thin, certain skin type, and hair length. A lasting impression is made on all who view these images. Fiji was once unbiased as to weight and outward appearance of others. The women would greet each other without remarks or negative tone toward one another.
Today's society is constantly besieged by the media, through advertisements and extolling the importance of female beauty and discrediting other virtues such as
Molding Expectations At one point or another, everyone has felt insecure about the way they look or apprehensive about how people see them. Throughout every stage of life we’re expected to act a certain way, to dress appropriately, and to respond properly in social environments. What happens when someone doesn’t fit the norm? In the article “Masks” Lucy Grealy shares an emotional story of depression, isolation, self-worth, and loneliness because of how she looks.
Not Just a Bowl Beauty is one of the main foci in society today where selfies, beauty enhancement or plastic surgery, celebrities, and the media reign over society—constantly defining what people should aim for in terms of appearance. Appearances are everything to many people rather than inner beauty such as character and values. In turn, this beauty-obsessed world has led to people becoming more shallow, superficial, and unaccepting towards anything besides the “norm.” It is quite ironic to have a “norm” considering how each individual is different and live in different cultures and such. People are not meant to be or look the same neither should they adhere to a certain standard in which someone else has established.
According to Britton (2012), last 2008, YWCA USA developed a report Beauty at Any Cost wherein they discuss the consequences of beauty obsession of every woman in America. It shows that beauty obsession results from a decrease in the level of self-esteem. It also gives a problem to the Americans because it’s also putting a dent in their pockets. It states that because of those cosmetics many people have decreased the level of self-esteem because of those cosmetics.
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but society decides that (Kong “Plastic Surgery and Lookism in South Korea”). By creating a “utopian society” where beauty is not recognized, Chiang explores how beauty affects the world. For example, when Tamera removes her calliagnosia, she does not instantly feel beautiful yet. It takes her a while to familiarize herself since she’s truly never been able to appreciate beauty before (Chiang 246). Once Tamera figures out she is beautiful, she tries to win back her ex, Garrett, with her looks.
Also, cosmetic procedures have increased by 39% over the past five years (from 2011) with surgical procedures up 17% and nonsurgical procedures up 44%(ASPS statistics). It shows that young women are willing to put themselves in danger because they feel the need to meet society's expectations of beauty. When going into cosmetic surgery, there is a risk of death or side effects that people are aware of, but still undergo the procedure. All because we live in a world where first impressions are made by how we look and thanks to magazines advertisements they set the “ideal” look for us and we all try to reach that look no matter how it
These factors can be religious functions, economy, advertisements, etcetera. The beauty ideal as we know it nowadays, of course, differs from the ones ages ago or at least as far as we know. So not only culture changes the beauty ideal but also the time we live in. In this chapter the change over time in the beauty ideal will be studies and discussed.
One of the categories in being the ideal woman is being conventionally beautiful because, according to the media, a significant portion of a woman’s self-worth rests in appearance. This can be seen through women’s magazines in particular, which promote altering one’s appearance leads to the significant improvement of one’s “love life and relationships, and ultimately, life in general” (Bazzini 199). Therefore, the media presents a direct relationship with beauty and success: the more attractive a woman is, the better her life will be. Thus, a woman must the take initiative to look beautiful in order to be successful. Through the repetitive exposure of the same type of image in the media, what society considers beautiful often resembles a definitive checklist.
Does technology help shape society’s standard of beauty? By: Allegra Sudarto Introduction: The world we live in today is a world of technology; the advancements in technology has been greatly integrated in our lives, and it is readily available and accessible. Technology has evolved it is not so much of magazines, newspapers, or posters, but technology has made the availability more at ease through smartphones.
Bryan Turner and Zheng Yanwen, the editors of The Body in Asia, posit that “the process of globalization changes cultural values – possibly bringing about a certain standardization of cultures – then the different forms of embodiment are weakened and national distinctiveness is eroded.” Though the models found in Culturally Chinese skin-whitening advertisements are a hybrid mix of both Caucasian and Asian females, these Asian models have specific features that have been adopted from Caucasian beauty culture and superimposed onto Asian bodies as the beauty ideal such as large eyes with eyelid folds, straight white teeth and matte