Beauty - Is it Really in the Eye of the Beholder?

1. Why do you think people are portrayed this way in the media?

I think that people are portrayed this way in the media because companies want to sell more products. By showing these images of people with flawless faces and gorgeous bodies, they are making the viewer feel inferior about themselves. These images make the viewer feel as though they need to do something more to themselves to look more beautiful. So they go out and buy products such as makeup and dieting solutions to look more like the people portrayed in the magazines. The more inferior they feel, the more products they buy to make themselves feel better about how they look. This translates to more money for the companies.

2. How are you affected by the images you see?

I don't think that images in the media affect my self esteem directly. I know that people don't really look like that, so I don't find myself wanting to look like them. However, these images do affect me indirectly through my interactions with other people. Some people I know do get influenced by these images in the media and it ends up affecting me. For example, my friend could be feeling the need to change her/himself because of the images they see in the media. This could end up affecting me because the interactions we have might not be the same anymore. Another way that it could affect me is that other people might have higher expectations about how I look, because they have higher standards on appearances.

3. What can be done to reduce the amount of young men and women that are negatively affected by these images?

To reduce the amount of young men and women that are negatively affected by the media, we need to inform them that people don't really look like that. I think we can use the media to send these messages, since the media was what sent the negative messages in the first place. I remember when I was younger, I used to watch a television series called That's So Raven. There was this one episode where Raven was not allowed to model her own creation because she wasn't skinny enough. In the end, Raven gives a speech to the director saying that "People come in all shapes and sizes, and they're all beautiful". I think that people would not be as negatively affected by images in the media if there were more programmes in the media that taught lessons like this.

4. What would your reaction be to a magazine cover where the subject isn’t all glammed up? Is this a possible route that society should take? Why or why not?

I think that it would be interesting to see the story behind why the subject on the cover isn't glammed up. Most magazines show overly-photoshopped people on the cover to catch the attention of the reader. However, a magazine cover with someone who is not "glammed up" would still be able to catch someone's attention because there aren't a lot of magazines with normal people on the cover. Since most covers show images of people who are caked in makeup, our brain would somehow learn to tune out those images since they all look the same. But a cover with an average person on the cover would be something different from all the others.
I think that theoretically, this would be a good route for society to go, but I don't think that it'll happen anytime soon, especially with the new technology coming out that allows people to edit photos of themselves in their own home without having to pay a lot of money.