Spring Break
Eye-opening film exposes body image realities
Joce DeWitt
Issue date: 6/3/09 Section: Forum
Surfing the internet is the perfect thing to do when I want to see how far society is going downhill.
I wasn't even on my homepage for ten seconds before I saw three different ads for things along the lines of "The Perfect Bikini Body." I clicked from one link to the next, none of them failing to flash me a picture of some anonymous woman's cleavage and toned abs.
This may be a total cliché, but I believe it is now safe to say that technology and the media have reached unexpected influential levels in our lives.
This topic has been talked to death, but as a new media communications major I feel the need to express my opinion.
I am currently in Anthropology 110, where we recently watched a documentary called "What a Girl Wants," which showed us a new side of the effects the evolving media holds on young girls.
It seemed when the documentary started that it was nothing I hadn't heard before because we here in America can't go for long without hearing about what advertising has done to our poor, innocent teenage girls. But as I continued to watch, I realized that what I was learning was different.
Facts in the documentary were not presented by some old anthropology professor from Harvard - instead they were given by young girls.
The first thing the video shows is a series of clips that had models walking down the runway and famous actresses exposing their skinny torsos in midriff-bearing shirts. Then a 12-year-old girl named Celine says, "I think it gives girls really low self esteem when they have to look that way but they can't."
Well said, Celine.
So this is what it has come down to: girls aged between 12 and 18 are now basing their ideas of beauty on what they see in magazines and blockbuster hits. Fantastic.
Let's continue with an eye-opening fact: 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat.
Excuse me! How did it get to be this way? Most 10-year-olds aren't even close to reaching puberty so one would certainly think that many girls would not be consumed with the idea that they are overweight.
I wasn't even on my homepage for ten seconds before I saw three different ads for things along the lines of "The Perfect Bikini Body." I clicked from one link to the next, none of them failing to flash me a picture of some anonymous woman's cleavage and toned abs.
This may be a total cliché, but I believe it is now safe to say that technology and the media have reached unexpected influential levels in our lives.
This topic has been talked to death, but as a new media communications major I feel the need to express my opinion.
I am currently in Anthropology 110, where we recently watched a documentary called "What a Girl Wants," which showed us a new side of the effects the evolving media holds on young girls.
It seemed when the documentary started that it was nothing I hadn't heard before because we here in America can't go for long without hearing about what advertising has done to our poor, innocent teenage girls. But as I continued to watch, I realized that what I was learning was different.
Facts in the documentary were not presented by some old anthropology professor from Harvard - instead they were given by young girls.
The first thing the video shows is a series of clips that had models walking down the runway and famous actresses exposing their skinny torsos in midriff-bearing shirts. Then a 12-year-old girl named Celine says, "I think it gives girls really low self esteem when they have to look that way but they can't."
Well said, Celine.
So this is what it has come down to: girls aged between 12 and 18 are now basing their ideas of beauty on what they see in magazines and blockbuster hits. Fantastic.
Let's continue with an eye-opening fact: 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat.
Excuse me! How did it get to be this way? Most 10-year-olds aren't even close to reaching puberty so one would certainly think that many girls would not be consumed with the idea that they are overweight.
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