What happens when society’s standard of
beauty is based on an illusion? In 2013, many magazine covers show stunningly
beautiful women who each have perfect features, including big eyes, small
waist, perfect nose, thick beautifully colored hair, sharply arched eyebrows,
and full lips. This is what women and young girls should look like. These women have become society’s stereotypical
idea of beauty. Not only do magazine editors manipulate faces, and necks, and
hair, but they also edit body shape. These images do not reflect real people,
but rather they are photo-shopped images of perfection; as displayed in the
image above.
The right-hand side of the image shows a
model before make-up and photo-shop are used to enhance the natural beauty that
is already there. Contrastingly, on the left-hand side of the photo, her eyes
have been widened, her neck has been lengthened, her lips have been filled, her
skin has been airbrushed, her face has been made more oval, and her eyebrows
have been darkened and the arch has been enhanced. The image on the left hand
side is not a real person, but a distorted image of a person that only exists
because of photo-shop.
When society’s standard of beauty is
based on an illusion, how are women affected? When young women strive for a
caliber of beauty that cannot be naturally reached, their body image and
self-esteem is negatively affected, causing monumental issues like anorexia and
depression. The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated
Disorders states that “the body type portrayed in advertising as the ideal is
possessed by only 5% of American females.”
This ideal of what it means to be
beautiful is not encouraging women and girls to be healthy and natural, but is
taking a toll on their mental and physical health. Young girls cling to their
copies of Vanity Fair and irrational
dreams that one day they will look like the girl on the magazine.
First off, I love how you started off with a question! That really captured my attention! I have seen the Dove commercial before with the woman transformed into the beautiful, false image that society looks up to. This is a great idea to do a visual rhetoric on. I think it is a big issue that needs to be addressed and you explained it perfectly!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Maggie -- your use of rhetorical questions strikes the balance between being thought provoking while not distracting from your thesis. Also, similarly to my post/picture, you carefully pick apart that juxtaposition of two ideas (the real face of the woman versus the edited one) that really is the basis of your proposed thesis. Great job!
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