As we know, the speaker we had come to class yesterday is a producer for America's Next Top Model. I have only watched a few minutes of the show itself while browsing through channels, but I assume that it is a competition show of women (though I hear the latest season also has men) competing for the title of 'the next top model'. Our speaker mentioned that one season had a plus size winner and that personalities often go beyond modeling talents, but what exactly does that mean? Plus size in the fashion world is size 12, the average for most American women. "Personality" matters, but when 12 equally conventionally beautiful women are competing, it's hard to really argue that beauty is less important. (The attached image is of the plus size winner from a previous season).
Hopefully, we've all heard body positivity messages given in our society: media gives us inaccurate portrayals of what people look like and thus cause us to negatively compare ourselves to unachievable goals. Some argue against body positivity saying that it should be a matter of health. However, when it comes to our current modeling trends, it is easily seen that these women are not healthy. Victoria's Secret models go on all liquid diets for months before runway shows in order to maintain their bodies for underwear modeling. America's Next Top Model not only perpetuates this, but it does so by pitting women against one another. Comparing women to one another in large part by their looks does not send a healthy message to the viewers.
Secondly, I think we need to consider the sexual objectification inherent to modeling.
This advertisement (if you can draw your eyes away from the obviously fake breasts) is for Skyy vodka. The man, in a suit with a bulge apparent in his pants, is giving the woman a drink. There are obviously many gendered things wrong with this: the focus of the picture is of the woman's breast, the woman is half naked while the man is portrayed as powerful (in a suit) and providing, etc. Not to mention the problems within our society with men getting women drunk in order to sleep with them (which is illegal as drunk consent is not legally consent). Women are getting younger and younger in advertisements with some girls as young as 13 or 14 modeling adult clothing, and yet they are still completely sexual. Women are being taught that their bodies are a commodity, an object that is not their own.
Basically, I think that our current modeling world is ethically unsound and perpetuating negative values. Also, if you found this interesting, you should go to "They Say Sex Sells, but I'm #notbuyingit" tonight at 6pm at Splash Creative. It'll be a great art showing of sexism in advertisements.
First off, I want to make it clear that I do not support unrealistic body standards in media. There are, without a doubt, unhealthily skinny models on the runway, and there are definitely photoshopped women in magazines. But with this being said, I think many women in America are getting up in arms without good reason. The percentage of unrealistic body types in mainstream media is actually quite small. These women are conventionally beautiful and their bodies are conventionally appealing, but they are not some alien species. They are real women, and many of them have either been gifted with good genes or work out and eat healthily. They don't all starve themselves.
ReplyDeleteConsider the Victoria Secret models - you, and many other women, seem to think they show some major ethical flaw in the modeling world, but I strongly disagree. Your claim about them "going on liquid diets for months" is completely false. Yes, they diet before shows, but not nearly to that extreme. Six days before the show, they drink a gallon of water a day in order to flush away excess water weight. They still eat during this period, they just avoid high salt foods. Eating your veggies is hardly something to be criticized for. Alessandra Ambrosia's typical day consists of eggs and bacon for breakfast, a salad with chicken for lunch, snacks of nuts and fruit, and dinner of whatever she is the mood for, whether that be fish, red meat, or some sort of vegetarian option. It hardly seems like she in anorexic. Miranda Kerr has been quoted multiple times saying that her diet is 80% healthy food and 20% fun food - aka, food she is excited about eating.
Obviously, they work out alot too, but both are mothers and have busy careers. They don't just run on the treadmill for 6 hours hoping to become a skeleton. They do strength training and cardio for reasonable amounts of time (2 hours a day, with rest days worked into their schedule). The average woman may never have a face like a Victoria Secret model (or the boobs like one), but with time and dedication, the average woman could have a body like them. I've included several pictures from their catalogs that show how healthy their bodies look. Their thighs touch, their sides dimple when they bend to the side, and their arms, while muscular, are nowhere near the notorious "skinny arm" status. They are simply in great shape.
You also say that the average American woman is a size 12. While this may be true, you seem to be forgetting that this includes the 35.7% of women that are clinically obese. Being obese is just as unhealthy as being anorexic. If we consider only the healthy ranges of weight, I doubt the average size would be a 12 (I couldn’t find actual data on this, so I may very well be wrong). Let’s just assume the new average size is 6 or 8. Most of the Victoria Secret models wear a 2 or 4. They may not be perfectly accurately representing the population, but they are not that far off from the truth.
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ReplyDeleteI hesitate to say much here because I am not well informed on the issue.
So instead attempting to construct my own opinion I will add to the issue you have proposed.
Everyone wants to be beautiful. Beauty connotes good. Whether it is physical beauty, beauty of soul, or beauty in some other respect, beauty is generally pursued as something that is good. I think this much is agreed upon by most. Conflict comes into play with the adverse effects of this desire. This conflict stems directly from what beauty is defined to be. Yet, resolution of the concept of beauty is no easy thing to do.
Overwhelmingly, people disagree on the definition of beauty, and it is because this definition is so problematic. If we define a set of traits to be "beautiful," then in that definition we also restrict the idea beauty. By affirming one thing as beautiful, we exclude other things. From here it seems like we should generalize the definition of beauty to avoid this exclusion, and this is something society has already done. Many accept that beauty can come in different forms and fashions. Even math can be beautiful to some people. But where do we draw the line? If the concept of beauty becomes so general that everything is beautiful, then it would seem to follow that nothing is beautiful. It in other words, beauty would have no value.
So I propose several options:
1) We retain an exclusive idea of beauty.
2) We retain an idea of relative beauty (akin to “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”)
3) We simply do away with the idea of beauty altogether.
Regarding the ethics of a standard of beauty, we should do as much as possible to prevent adverse effects that stem from a desire to be beautiful. I think this is possible in many ways, even in the first option I proposed. We could simply accept that to be not beautiful is perfectly fine, instead of juxtaposing not-beauty with beauty as bad is with good.
I apologize if it sounded like I was shaming the models themselves or any body type, that was definitely not my intention. The liquid diet comment was a reference to an article I read last year that I cannot find, thus it could be entirely false. My point about VS models are the lengths they have to go to achieve their image, not to mention the fact that they are still airbrushed and photo shopped. Even VS models themselves cannot actually achieve the images we see in magazines in their own lives. My real question about unattainable beauty standards and whether or not they have ethics is this: is it ethical that in order to make money, advertisements rely on the anxiety women feel by being unable to actually look like the pictures they see? Continually promoting this one idea of beauty seems to do nothing good.
ReplyDeleteLinks about Average American Size:
http://jezebel.com/many-clothing-stores-have-zilch-for-the-average-america-560384928
http://www.cleveland.com/style/index.ssf/2010/08/size_14_is_average_american_wo.html
Photo shopping:
http://www.upworthy.com/see-why-we-have-an-absolutely-ridiculous-standard-of-beauty-in-just-37-seconds
Also, I would recommend watching the documentary Miss Representation.
"My point about VS models are the lengths they have to go to achieve their image, not to mention the fact that they are still airbrushed and photo shopped."
ReplyDeleteThese lengths are healthy eating and exercise, and while I'm sure the catalog models have been edited, the Angels are on the runway. There is no way to photoshop that. So yes, VS models can achieve those images because we see them in real life.
As far as the actual ethical question goes, I don't think that advertisers are trying to prey on anxiety about personal body types. Models for most retailers, like Gap, Macy's, or Target, are pretty normal looking, and I can't imagine they make the average woman feel that self-conscious. They are just pretty women - not some crazy made up ideal. The fact that advertisers use socially accepted beauty standards to sell clothes is not their fault. Its ours. If we did not find the symmetrical face attractive, it wouldn't be used on ads. They are simply giving us what we deem beautiful. If you saw Honey Boo Boo's mom wearing a Tshirt, and then Michelle Obama wearing that same Tshirt, which one would make you want the Tshirt more? I'm guessing Michelle's ad - because she is a pretty woman with a nice figure. She isn't a supermodel, just a stressed out mom. If she has time to get arms like that, then we all do.
First of all - yes, lots of models are unhealthy. Secondly, not all models are unhealthy. More and more clothing conglomerates are featuring "plus size" and "real" women in their adds, to correct an enormous demographic marketing error. So that's good news. There will always be self-conscious women out there in the modeling world who abuse their health for the sake of beauty, but on the whole I would not say that this behavior is being encouraged. I worry that for fear of perpetuating unhealthy thinness, our society is moving toward a trend of bashing people who are healthily thin. (Let's not hate on each other, friends.) Thirdly, most models do not even look in person like their photos. Example A:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.buzzfeed.com/maycie/powerful-video-shows-what-photoshop-can-do
On the Next Top Model topic, you've got it wrong. Personality (particularly the abilities to remain calm under pressure and to work well with others) and creativity during photo shoots earn models the most points. If they get on the show, the only physical requirement that is typically enforced is height. There has never been a contestant on Next Top Model that was under 5'6". I say all this with the experience of having watched several seasons of the show.
I am hesitant to take a side on this debate. While I do believe that there are many healthy models that are not "too skinny", I think that the healthy and gorgeous models still skew what the typical woman looks like. I know that Victoria Secret models are chosen because they are some of the most beautiful women in the world (and I totally agree because they are absolutely gorgeous), but it is also their paid profession to maintain their looks. They are essentially paid to stay fit and are given the luxury of having multiple trainers, make-up artists, hair stylists, and other beautifying professionals at their beck and call. I can safely say that this is not something that the typical woman has access to.
ReplyDeleteMy argument is that media is not always portraying a false image of women, though I do concede that there is a lot of photo-shopping that goes on and models that actually are too skinny, but that women in society take these models to be "the norm". They believe that if Miranda Kerr or Christine Teigen can do it, so can a regular women. While this is true (barring genetic factors), most women in society do not have the access, time, or money that it requires to live the lifestyles that models are paid to live. Because many women believe that they can look like these models if they try hard enough, much stress and worry goes into one’s looks. And this is what becomes unhealthy.
It is not the amount of weight lost or how skinny one is that is unhealthy in our society. What is unhealthy is the pressure women feel to look comparable to these models. Quite frankly, none of will ever look like these models. And stressing over trying to is mentally draining and a disservice to society in my opinion. While I might be dreaming big, if women (and men for that matter) spent half the time they do stressing over their looks, whether is be weight, make-up, hair, or clothes, on pursuing something they love, society would be a completely different place.
One of the reason advertisement agencies promotes this thin, sexy lady as ideal and beautiful is because of revenue. It brings more money into various companies in many different ways. Thankfully more and more people are aware that even the models don’t actually look like they are portrayed in the photographs due to copious amounts of airbrushing and Photoshop. However, unfortunately even with knowledge of the truth of this industry, our society has been taught to view thin and sexy as beautiful and ideal. The recently people are finding commercial industry to be immoral, thus strides are being made in bringing awareness to the issue and to change the issue. Despite the headway many retail stores are making in attempting to use less Photoshop and more natural beauty from the models, our society still prefers the image of the photoshopped, perfectly looking model. Although the industry may be immortal, society is still at fault because we are fueling these ideal beauty standards. Advertisement and many industries would not exist without their costumers, therefore part of the blame is on us and we need to own up to this. If we are unhappy with how women are portrayed (in America’s next top model for example) then we should stop supporting it.
ReplyDeleteWhere does the standard of beauty come from? I just came across this video. Maybe it has some truth in it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHcwoCy_ZHA
ReplyDeleteThe media sets the ideal and the market just reacts to it.