Blog 2: Sex, Lies and the Media

“We are all human, and it’s ok to look like a human. Nobody will ever measure up to the ideal beauty, that is literally and physically impossible,” stated commercial director and film maker Jesse Rotten. The article I read for my Blog 2 is “Sex, lies and the Media: New wave of activists challenge notions of beauty.” This article was written by Emanuella Grinberg and was found on CNN.com. The article on Siebel-Newsom’s documentary, Miss Representation discusses the ways in which media demeans, objectification and sexualized images of women. In this documentary many other aspects of this topic are explored.

            The movie, Miss Representation attacks the misportrayals of beauty in the media and its affect on the advancement of women. Grinberg (2012) explained in the article that media is a term used to describe all forms of mass communication, from the internet, TV, film, magazines, radio and advertising. Miss Representation has been aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network and over 700 times around the world. More than 2,000 schools have purchased curricula based on the film for classroom discussion (Grinberg 2012). Women make up 51% of the United States yet only 17% of seats in the House of Representatives (Grinberg 2012).   Jennifer Siebel-Newsom believes that women are aspiring to achieve greatness in leadership, but that they are unable to be taken seriously due to the media portrayal of women. Women are objectified more than ever, experts say, thanks to the constant barrage of images from all forms of media, many of them connecting products to a pair of breasts and a coy smile (Grinberg 2012). Objectification is seeing the body as an object and separate from its context (Shaw & Lee, 2012).  Bordo argues that mainstream Western media imagery tends to homogenize female beauty, removing racial, ethnic, and sexual differences that “disturb” Anglo-Saxon, heterosexual expectations and identifications. These beauty ideals become models against which women measure, judge, and discipline their bodies. (Rubin, Fitts, & Becker, 2003).

Today we live in a society in which someone is looked upon as beautiful if they are youthful, slender, tan, and have long flowing hair. Sizeism remains the only truly socially acceptable form of discrimination on the planet (Martin, 2008). The research in the last 10 years shows just how damaging this idea of self-objectification is, the idea that your value of self-worth is dependent on the amount of sexual attractiveness you have to the outside world (Grinberg 2012). The article also talks about the fake commercial made by Jesse Rosten called Fotoshop by Adobé. This video makes fun of beauty advertisement’s models and their unrealistic promise for physical change. The video states; the celebrities and models appearance creates an unrealistic expectation to the general public because of the extreme photo enhancement that takes place. In reality, it becomes physically impossible to replicate this image.  As a result,   Americans have created an unrealistic and unachievable standard of beauty. Not until all girls and women  are freed from stereotypical expectations about our natures and abilities will we also be freed from the bonds of the beauty culture (Weitz 2004).  

This article relates to class in reference to Chapter 5-Inscrbing Gender on the Body, in our textbook Women’s Voices, Feminist Vision. This chapter discusses beauty norms and expectations, what women will do to be perceived at beautiful, and the struggles women endure to be beautiful. The new information that I learned from this article is that many women are having trouble succeeding in business’ and government due to what people perceive in the media. I knew that women were affected by the media when it came to relationships and self-esteem, but not being taken serious enough to run a state. The information that I read in this article supported the readings and videos from class. That women today are being objectified, and having false expectations of beauty forced on them due to the media. Below I have provided a link the website to the article I have read, a link to the trailer for the video Miss Representation, and a link to the video Fotoshop by Adobé.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_vVUIYOmJM  (Fotoshop by Adobé)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gkIiV6konY  (Miss Representation Trailer)

Grinber, E. (2012, March 12). Sex, lies, and media: New wave of activists challenge notions of

beauty. Cnn.com. Retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/09/living/beauty-media-miss-representation/index.html?iref=allsearch

Martin, C.E. (2008). Love Your Fat Self. Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions (265-268). New

            York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Rubin,L.R., Fitts, M.K., & Becker, A.E. (2003). Body Ethics and Aesthetics Among African

American and Latina Women. Women’s Voices, Feminist Vision (243-252). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Shaw, S.M.,& Lee, J. (2012). Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions (5^th ed.). New York, NY: The

            McGraw-Hill Companies.

Weitz,R. (2004). What We Do for Love. Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions (253-262). New

            York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies.