Blog Post #3, Kristyn Gumienny, "Missrepresentation"

     As said in the documentary, "In one week American teenagers spend 31 hours watching TV, 17 hours listening to music, 3 hours watching movies, 4 hours reading magazines, 10 hours online. That’s 10 hours and 45 minutes of media consumption a day." In those 10 hours and 45 minutes of media, there is advertising-whether it be from what we watch, what we listen to, or what we see. In the magazines we see women, who from the side are stick thin, looking unhealthy. In the music videos we see women wearing bikinis, dancing in the background of the singer... it's a way to sell the song, to get more views. "The media makes women self objectify themselves--leading to depression, or eating disorders." I especially think this is true. The idea that women should look a certain way, in "model standards" or "celebrity standards" to please men is just wrong.
     I came across an article about the Ralph Lauren model (the same one that was discussed in the documentary) who was photoshopped to the point where all her proportions were just wrong. This ad was later pulled after several complaints. (That ad can be seen here). In the comments following the article, people were so thankful that the ad had been pulled, because it influences teens/young adults to starve themselves. I believe that ads do this. Imagine... how much money is spent to do this, to make "the perfect advertisement."

     I remember watching a documentary about model scouts who picked 4 girls they saw on the street. These girls were probably 14-15 years old as "the average modeling career is over by the age of 21." They were all living together, and in the end only one girl would be going to New York to debut as a model. These girls wanted it so bad that they were starving themselves, making one cup of applesauce last the entire day. One girl was denied because she was 5'8" with a 26" waist... they said that was too fat. Imagine what that girl must have felt, being sent home because she is "too fat" for the modeling industry. This brings to me the beginning of the documentary, when the group of high school girls were discussing how the media affects women. One girl had said that she fears for the world her little sister would grow up in-it's bad now, how bad will it be in the future? And the other girl who said she would get made fun of because she just had a small figure, saying she is "skinny to gain attention."

    Another statistic that yet surprised me was that women use $7,000 in beauty products every year, and most of them probably don't even know it. The commercial for the beauty product shows a model, or actress, wearing the beauty product, but she staring into the camera and swaying her head back and forth for 20 seconds--and the company makes millions. Yahoo! thinks that it is front page newsworthy when a celebrity is wearing sweats, or is eating in public view, or they automatically assume she's pregnant because she gained 1 pound.

    While I do blame the media for raising expectations, and make women feel like they aren't good enough, pushing them to the point where they have eating disorders, or suffer from depression, women don't have to have the media influence them. We have that decision to let it influence us, or not.