In the clip from Missrepresntaion a statistic showed up that completely surprised me. The fact that 65% of women in America have a eating disorder. Meaning that more than half the woman population thinks they have to starve or binge themselves in order to look skinnier. This I do believe is due to to image girls are introduced to at a very young age. Many girls play with barbie dolls. This is a well known fact. But these barbie dolls are an example of why girls think they should be skinny. Their barbie dolls are beautiful. They are skinny with large boobs and butts. They have perfect hair and flawless faces. This creates a want to be as beautiful as them even if it means not eating for days. Another example of the media representing women in a way that is unreachable for the majority of young women is the axe commercial. The commercial is directed toward men and to entice them to buy their product. However, their enticing them by showing half naked models that have been digitally altered to look that good. This makes girls want to be that skinny because that is what men want. The media is encouraging eating disorders by representing an unreal body that girls want to be like so they get the attention from others.
Also stated in the clip from Missrepresntaion is the fact that in Hollywood only 13 women were protagonists, yet only 1 was not based on finding a man. When I look back at the movies recently made by Hollywood I find it true. I cannot recall a movie soaly about a woman and her accomplishments without a man being the true protagonist. Hollywood portrays women mostly reductivly. They are shown mostly as hot sex enticers. Like in the movie Transformers the second main character is this hot skinny woman that enjoy things that men do too. She really has no point but to make the movie more interesting to men so that they are reaching their target audience. Also shown in Mr. and Ms. Smith the wife is portrayed as this hot spy women with a gun. Many men find that attractive and simply would watch it to see her body. These movies reductive as they portray women not as complex characters but as sex enticers.
I chose to talk about the fact that there are no female protagonists in movies and I noted Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie as well! I was thinking of their roles in Transformers and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I honestly didn't read any blog posts prior to writing mine and I think it is very interesting that we both thought of the same two actresses/roles to note. I am now wondering why it is these two women who stood out most to us. I have to admit have found myself wishing I looked more like Megan Fox or that I had the confidence of Angelina Jolie at times. I don't know if you have had these same feelings towards these women, but I'm sure plenty of women have. Megan Fox has been featured in Maxim, and Angelina Jolie has always stood out for her sexiness and power. Both of these women are influential figures and have gotten to this point with their looks, despite what we learned in Miss Representation, but the point is that we need to teach our youth that you don't need to be gorgeous or sexy to succeed. For one thing, Megan Fox has undergone plastic surgery anyways so she is not quite a natural beauty anyways. If women like them were to stand up for other women, and not rely on their looks for success, I wonder what then would make them stand out to you and I...
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