Body Image

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Body Image Gender Representation
APPRECIATION PART II
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Cultivating Beauty
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Cultivation Theory - As a person watches more of
some sort of TV, he/she becomes cultivated into
the television program view of social reality
 Gerbners theory shows that such change is
gradual and slow in evolving in individuals.
Gerbner believes there are two processes that
reveal evidence of media cultivation.
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Cultural Understandings

• Our beliefs are influenced most about things we
  have the least first-hand knowledge of.
• Stereotyping
• Messages about different countries and cultures

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Cultural Studies of Media

• For cultural studies, media culture provides
  the materials for constructing views of the
  world, behavior, and even identities. Those who
  uncritically follow the dictates of media culture
  tend to "mainstream" themselves, conforming to
  the dominant fashion, values, and behavior.
  Television, film, music, and other popular
  cultural forms are thus often liberal or
  conservative, or occasionally express more
  radical or oppositional views (Douglas Kellner,
  UCLA, 1995)
• http//www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/S
  AGEcs.htm

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Beauty and Body Image in the Media

• Images of female bodies are everywhere.
  Attractive Womenand their body partssell
  everything from food to cars
• Why are the medias standards of beauty so
  different than the norm?

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http//video.google.com/videoplay?docid-199336850
2337678412
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The Economics of Body Image

• How does the thinness message get across?
• The average North American girl will watch 5,000
  hours of television, including 80,000 ads, before
  she starts kindergarten.
• By the time she is 17 years old, she has received
  over 250,000 commercial messages through the
  media.

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The Economics of Thinness

• The diet industry is worth 100 billion a yearof
  that approximately 33 billion is advertising
  revenue.
• The barrage of messages about beauty and thinness
  tells women that they are always in need of
  adjustment and that the female body is an object
  to be perfected.
• 69 of girls in one study said that magazine
  models influence their idea of the perfect body
  shape
• 75 of "normal" weight women think they are
  overweight
• 90 of women overestimate their body size.

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Beauty and Body Image in the Media

• According to a 2005 study Over 3/4 of the female
  characters in TV sitcoms are underweight, and
  only 1 in 20 are above average in size.

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Men Vs. Women
King of Queens

• All family sitcoms virtually all sitcoms now
  are about a fat guy with a hot wife.
• Rick Marin, former NYT television critic
  Father Eats Best. New York Times, November 24,
  2004

According to Jim
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Image of Couples of Different Weights
Still Standing
Family Guy
According to Jim

• Whether the images are real or animated, the
  message is an overweight man can have a happy
  family life, but an overweight woman is destined
  to be alone...

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Beauty and Body Image in the Media

• Researchers report that womens magazines have 10
  and ½  times more ads and articles promoting
  weight loss than mens magazines do.
• Over three-quarters of the covers of womens
  magazines include at least one message about how
  to change a womans bodily appearanceby diet,
  exercise or cosmetic surgery.

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http//video.google.com/videoplay?docid-199336850
2337678412
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Its not only a female issue
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Its not only a message of thinness, its a
manipulated message of thinness
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How ethical is the photoshoping of images?
http//demo.fb.se/e/girlpower/retouch/retouch/inde
x.html
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Implications of retouching?

• Is it creating a greater disparity between
  reality and fantasy?
• In a capitalist society, where we all benefit
  from market models, whats the problem?
• Can repurposing help us appreciate body image
  more? (knowtheNews - Knowrealbeauty)

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TASKHow would you, in this highly invasive media
culture, help people realize and appreciate body
image?
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