StudyBoss » Gender » Essay about The Beauty Myth Analysis

Essay about The Beauty Myth Analysis

What promotes the subjection of women? Master before enslaving a body must first enslave the mind of the weak to poison their self-esteem to request total obedience. Propaganda is always trying to persuade the audience to a persuaders point of view either political, religious, ethical. One of the approaches is to make the individual believe that she or he will benefit from it. If you stay young longer using our creams, diets, drugs and surgeries only then you may make your dreams come true.

Person who is being targeted is often named the national citizen so by ddressing a mass that is one nation or a race the propaganda text is addressing the individual. It is very “American”, “Polish”, and “Japanese” to look fit and young because that is the signifier of success. In today’s world media is solely responsible to disseminate information to large numbers of people. In war, where truth is often said to be the first casualty, propaganda is the major weapon. Nazism, Communism, Islamic Extremism to name a few that used the tool of propaganda.

Beauty propaganda that is usually targeting women is an ongoing war where we do not have a chance living in this ustomer Matrix where no one even offers the choice of blue or red pill. Altered images of beauty by digital technology are bombarding women from very early age and through out their whole life. “Our culture gives a young woman only two dreams in which to imagine her body, like a coin with two faces; one pornographic, the other anorexic; the first for nighttime, the second for day one supposedly, for men and the other for other women. ” The Beauty Myth by Nomi Wolf The definition of beauty changed from healthy looking female body to anorexic, tall and skinny mannequin like.

Unnaturally looking models on catwalk, billboards, bus stops, TV commercials, magazines, cosmetic commercials are everywhere. Media affects the self-esteem and body image of young girls that are the easiest target. They are being target so frequently because at this age they are looking for acceptance they need to be liked. Media puts forth an image of beauty that is unattainable no matter how skinny girls will get and how much money they spent in the beauty preparation they cannot win with the digital image in the real word despite the struggle. “Advertising is an over 100 billion ollar a year industry and affects all of us throughout our lives. We are each exposed to over 2000 ads a day, constituting perhaps the most powerful educational force in society. The average American will spend one and one-half years of his or her life watching television commercials. The ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy. They tell us who we are and who we should be. Sometimes they sell addictions. Advertising is the foundation and economic lifeblood of the media.

By Jean Kilbourne “Beauty… and the Beast of Advertising” But what do people, especially teenagers, learn from the advertising messages? On the most obvious level they learn the stereotypes. Advertising creates a mythical, mostly white world in which people are rarely ugly, overweight, poor, struggling or disabled, either physically or mentally. The image is artificial and can only be achieved artificially (even the “natural look” requires much preparation and cost). Beauty is something that comes from without; more than one million dollars is spent every hour on cosmetics. Desperate to onform to an ideal and impossible standard, many women go to great lengths to manipulate and change their faces and bodies. A woman is conditioned to view her face as a mask and her body as an object, as things separate from and more important than her real self, constantly in need of alteration, improvement, and disguise.

She is made to feel dissatisfied and ashamed of herself, whether she tries to achieve “the look” or not. ” “Objectified constantly by others, she learns to objectify herself. ” This is the most successful propaganda possible where we start believing and convincing urselves that this is the life we chose to live. Peter Pan never grows up but we do. Spending ton of money on creams, diets that do not work, facial operations to look just as the fourteen-year-old models in Vogue? Is this the life we really want for ourselves and the next generations or maybe we should focus on something more important such as global worming, hunger, cancer, or simply being a happy human beings who enjoys our short life on this planet. Our attention is often focused on banalities and vanity.

Ads seem to be inescapable; they fallow us everywhere from bus stops, radio commercials in your ar, subway ads asking us to dream big… Commercials are telling us what to dream about in all the stages of our life, we start from dreaming about the Barbie look, then we hope for the Prince with the diamond ring, then a safe car and a big house with dishwasher, kids, garden on top we must have fancy shoes bags if we do not fulfill all the above we shall not be happy by their standards and often we forget that it was not our dream we lived by. It is harder and harder to be comfortable and happy in your own skin. (… )

Rather than create great works of art, women are expected to regard themselves as works of art, o sculpt their bodies, develop their breasts, and paint their faces as aesthetic expression. Furthermore, the negative correlation of beauty to brains is everywhere propagandized. Oscar Wilde once flattered his own sex by nothing, “No woman is a genius; women are decorative sex. ” Rooted in this belief about female beauty is the stereotype not only of the dumb blonde, but also the companion belief in the general intellectual inferiority of women(… ) Jane Caputi, “One Size Does Not Fit All: Being Beautiful, Thin and Female in America,” from J. Nachbar & K. Lause, Popular Culture, an Introduction (1992): 292

Cite This Work

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:

Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.