As we learned in class this week, each person is exposed to about 20,000 ads per year. Even though we may say these ads have no affect on us, they do. They make us unconsciously shape a picture of the ideal body for both men and women, a body everyone must strive for. However, what some people don't understand is that these bodies aren't real. The bodies of supermodels, no matter how thin or beautiful, go through edit after edit to create the best, flawless product. Magazines publish pictures of pencil-thin girls with large breasts that are over sexualized, when in reality their bodies are impossible to have naturally. The media is creating this self-conscious society where no one is proud of what they have. If you're skinny, you can always become skinnier. If your breasts are large, you can always make them larger. If your muscles are huge, they can always get bigger. Thousands and thousands of dollars are being spent by people on plastic surgery to create this material body that isn't theirs; a body they didn't even want until the media made them think they wanted it.
Shows and movies add to the drop in self confidence and also add to the stereotypical gender roles. They portray the perfect man to be tall, muscular, confident, and not afraid of using violence when necessary. If a man shows a feminine side, they're labeled as "fag", "gay", or "girly". Thousands of kids who don't fit this "ideal" masculine man are bullied to the point where they fight back to gain their manliness. In the article by Kimmel, it even said this boy's dad labeled him as "gay" and "queer" for not fitting this body type. What hope do you have when even your family is putting you down? A good example of these images about masculinity and stereotypes about women are Disney Movies. Disney movies portray a great man as tall, masculine and a bully such as Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Also, in a scene we watched from Beauty and the Beast, girls are portrayed as weak and are supposed to be worshipping a masculine man, like Gaston. In AP Psychology class my teacher made a good point when she said that mothers aren't involved in Disney movies. The only Disney movie I can think of, where the character has a mother, is Bambi and the mother eventually gets shot in the middle of the film. Disney sends out a message that women aren't important.
If these messages are continuously sent to people, drowning their daily lives, our society will only be going downhill from here. No one will learn to accept themselves and others for who they are, what they look like, or comprehend that everyone is different. Being a skinny girl is just a body type and so is being muscular male; just because you have that body doesn't mean you're a better person. People need to start thinking about what is more important in life, rather than these fake looks that we're exposed to all the time.
I read an article, and have subsequently started using it in my classroom, called "Unlearning the Myths: The Tie That Binds" that talks not so much about the perfect human, although the message is certainly there, but more so how our culture here in the States is transmitted from the very beginning, and perhaps no more clearly than through cartoons. It talks about the fact that there is always a hidden agenda/message woven in a cartoon, but depending on what the time period or the cartoon itself was, the messages varied from the obvious in some (e.g. kindness) to the not so obvious (e.g. the fact that in certain episodes of old school 'toons like Popeye there are very real racist undertones) in others. Is the other's point getting a little dated? Yes, but that's as a result of increasing sensitivity to what our kids see; however, the messages that the media conveys starts VERY early in ways that we don't even pick up on. Definitely a good read that is thought provoking if you are interested in this topic. Personally, I use it as a teaching tool through a culture and media unit.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your post! You bring up a lot of great points and I couldn't agree more with you. There are so many cartoons I have gone back to watch recently and have found many of these subtle, inappropriate messages.
ReplyDelete