In
today's media, bodily perfection is not only the standard,
it's the norm
One
photograph at Lauren Greenfield's "Girl Culture" exhibition
depicts a nineteen-year-old woman trying on a pair of stiletto
heels at a high-end clothing store. The woman, Lillian, has
long, shiny blonde hair and a face heavy with makeup. She gazes
at the camera, her head tilted slightly and her mouth open,
as if caught in the middle of this pronouncement: "Beauty
is everywhere. You can't escape it."
The
words are hers; she is quoted in a neat little box beside
the picture. Her skin-baring little black dress shows off
a naked shoulder, and it looks like one you might find on
the catwalk, or at a star-packed movie premiere. Although
Lillian is not an actress or a model, she still feels the
pressure to emphasize her appearance in any way she can.
Greenfield's
exhibition seeks to indict American society for allowing these
pressures to exist. Photographs of girls and young women taking
the act of body modification to the extreme are hard to ignore.
Personal testimonies intrinsically point the finger at a culture
that rewards women for "measuring up" to a certain physical
ideal. Fifteen-year-old Sheena shaves her arms in order to
appear more feminine, ascribing to the notion that a beautiful
female body is completely smooth and hairless. Five-year-old
Lily, too young even to read, wants to be famous one day so
that others can "see [her] face and body." In nearly all of
these photographs and corresponding testimonies, a female
is resigned to the fact that her appearance is one of her
top priorities, and it is society, Greenfield implies, that
produces and encourages this attitude.
Greenfield
is correct in her condemnation of a shallow American culture,
and her photographs include an essential subtext about one
of the most important aspects of that culture: the media.
Society may be to blame for our culture's obsession with beauty,
but nowhere is that society more eagerly represented than
in film, television, and fashion magazines. The media, as
a reflection of the society to which it caters, is a powerful
instrument of social consciousness. Although it can be argued
that the media simply reinforces the ideology of its collective
audience, it also contributes to society's ills by creating
illusions and masking them as authentic. Cultural ideals pertaining
to beauty and femininity find security on the screen, and
in the pages of fashion magazines, where they can transform
into unattainable standards.
Airbrushing allows women to obtain impossible ideals
These ideals manifest
themselves through images of beauty and through the implications
that accompany them. Since an individual's culture and society
are expected to be reflected in the media, it is not remarkable
that she would attempt to identify with the image that is supposed
to represent her. This identification becomes a problem when
the media's representation of "beautiful woman" is
consistently unvaried. When a medium exposes the same image
again and again, it is likely to produce a sense of authenticity
for the viewer, making it more difficult for her not to accept
it, in a larger sense, as the truth. If a "beautiful woman"
is always thin, with perfect skin and a flawless complexion,
then the typical female viewer, who is most likely not all of
these things, will find herself alienated by the very image
with which she is supposed to identify. Her appearance must
be wrong somehow and inadequate. It shouldn't be surprising
that these distressing conclusions would lead to poor body image
among many American women.
Several
studies have been conducted pertaining to the direct relationship
between media exposure and body consciousness. One study of
a sample of Stanford graduates and undergraduates found that
sixty-eight percent of students felt worse about their own
appearances after reading women's magazines. Another found
that individuals who were shown pictures of thin models had
lower self-evaluations than those who had seen average-sized
and plus-sized models (Media Scope 5). These statistics are
disturbing because the images of these women, beautiful as
they are, are incredibly unrealistic. The majority of photographs
of models in magazines are airbrushed before they are published,
erasing such "unattractive"—yet perfectly natural—physical
traits such as freckles, blemishes and stretch marks. Airbrushing
is also used to "trim down" a model so she will appear even
more slender than she already is. Flaws are no longer an issue
because they can be instantly eliminated. Claire, art director
of a fashion magazine, notes that altering the appearance
of a model is standard procedure: "Airbrushing means that
we can do almost anything to a model's face…we can thin or
thicken lips, whiten and straighten teeth, zap wrinkles, shadows
and blemishes, change make-up and skin color, adjust hairstyles
and even trim off any unwanted bulges" (Body Image 6). By
altering the appearance of these women, magazines create imaginary
ideals out of real individuals.
"Reality" programs feature only beautiful thin women
Magazines, however,
are not the only place these images can be found. Film and television
can play a substantial role in contributing to a woman's poor
body image by depicting the ideal female figure as a specific
prototype.
Flaws are no longer an issue because they can be instantly eliminated.
The most apparent characteristic of the media's ideal woman
is thinness. In an article on television and women's bodies,
Kristen Harrison observes, "Thinness is portrayed as the
female ideal not only through depictions of thinness as attractive
and virtuous but also through depictions of fatness as disgusting
and worthy of ridicule" (4). Thinness, then, is associated
not only with beauty but with moral worth. What woman wouldn't
want to identify with that? Beauty and success are highly desirable
to many women, and the media associates both of these things
with a specific body type: the thin kind.
The
problem is not that thin women are considered beautiful in
the entertainment world; the problem is that beauty and sensuality
are almost always attributed to thin women only. And not only
are these women thin; in many cases they are dangerously underweight.
Miss America contestants, for example, have become so skinny
that the majority are now at least 15 percent below the healthy
body weight in relation to their height (Schneider 7). Sixty-nine
percent of female television characters are thin, while only
five percent are overweight (Dittrich 11). Compared to a few
generations ago, when the average top actress wore a size
twelve, today's female celebrities average a size zero to
two (Szwarc 4). Even so called "reality" programs feature
only beautiful thin women, unless a larger woman's weight
is somehow addressed in the storyline as a way of explaining
such an unfamiliar image. While larger actresses are sometimes
very successful in Hollywood, their roles are almost always
limited to that of the tough or motherly figure. An overweight
woman is almost never cast in the romantic lead role unless
it involves a comic overtone, such as Queen Latifah's character
in the comedy Bringing Down the House. More often
they are depicted as tough and generally unfeminine, such
as Rosie O'Donnell in A League of Their Own or Queen
Latifah, again, in Chicago. The position of "sidekick"
to the pretty girl is another popular role for the overweight
actress; she is branded as funny and outrageous, a foil to
the romantic lead female. She adds a fun element to the film
or television show, but the romantic, sensual aspects of the
story are attributed to her thinner, more beautiful counterpart.
Even Julia
Roberts needs a body double
Even women who, by
any standards, would be considered attractive are sometimes
deemed not perfect enough to showcase their bodies in nude or
semi-nude scenes. Body doubles often stand in for "imperfect"
female movie stars, such as Julia Roberts in the film Pretty
Woman and Gwenyth Paltrow in Shallow Hal. Not
only is weight an issue in these circumstances, but other aspects
of the female form come under scrutiny as well. Not only is
a body double likely to be even thinner than the actress, but
an astonishing eighty-five percent of these body doubles have
breast implants (Girls, Women & Media 16). A natural, healthy
female body is apparently not as beautiful or sensual as one
that is surgically altered, according to the images on the screen.
The most beautiful women, the media implicitly asserts, are
those who possess bodies that are small in the waist and comparably
large in the chest. Barbie, the most popular doll in the world
and a timeless favorite among young girls, would have a grossly
disproportionate body if she were enlarged to human-size with
her current measurements. She would, in fact, be six feet tall
and weigh a mere 101 pounds! Her measurements, at 39-19-33,
would render her immobile (ANRED). Given that the makers of
Barbie attempt to induce young girls to identify with the doll
in order to increase sales, the underlying fact that Barbie's
body could not exist without the help of plastic surgery seems
vastly irresponsible. The average measurements of a contemporary
fashion model are 33-23-33. Even given the benefit of the doubt
by saying these models did not resort to plastic surgery to
attain that figure, it is essential to acknowledge that these
women comprise only one percent of the population. For the other
ninety-nine percent, a figure like that is unattainable by any
natural method.
The
constant display of impossibly idealistic female forms—without
the variation of bodies that naturally exists in our society—presents
to women a message that beauty looks a certain way. Without
a screen-image to identify with, many women are left with
the conclusion that their bodies must be "fixed" in order
to equate themselves with what is represented on screen. The
very fact that the media is bombarded with virtually only
two types of beautiful women—those who are thin and those
who are thin with big breasts—promotes the message that
these ideals are attainable. The majority of these characters
are not meant to alienate the audience; female spectators
are, for the most part, intended to identify with them.
Cosmetic
procedures steadily increase in number
If female characters
are presented as having attainable qualities, the more attractive
their form becomes. The media wants, of course, to sell a
product, even if that product is simply the film or television
show in which the idyllic woman appears. If a woman identifies
with the woman on the screen, who might be funny, smart, talented,
or all of these things, then the product is more likely to
be sold. Film and television is lush with female characters
with a variety of personality traits with which to identify,
and yet the body types of these very different types of women
remain almost identical. The implication is that beauty comes
in all types of personalities, but in only one shape and size.
The way women go about
obtaining the ideal body, then, is increasingly through extreme
measures. Surgery is more common today than ever before, largely
due to the numerous celebrities that have openly (or not so
openly) admitted to "improving" their bodies with a cosmetic
procedure.
Everybody Loves Raymond star Patricia
Heaton is very open about her tummy tuck, candidly noting that
she did it for sheer "vanity." Popular television personality
Sharon Osbourne admits to having several procedures, including
liposuction, a face-lift, a breast-lift, and a tummy tuck (People
Weekly 1, 6). Cosmetic surgery is now a multi-billion dollar
business, often capitalizing on the effects of media pressures
through advertisements promising a better, more beautiful body.
Liposuction and breast augmentation are the two most popular
procedures among women, with an astonishing half million patients
in 2001 alone. Rhinoplasty and blepharoplasty, surgery of the
nose and eyelids, follow with just over 300,000 patients. Other
body-modifying nonsurgical procedures include laser hair removal,
chemical peels and microdermabrasion, all of which numbered
in the millions in the year 2001 (Ophthalmology Times). None
of these procedures are inexpensive, and all of them carry a
particular level of risk, but the number of women opting to
have them is nevertheless on the rise. Nearly 6.9 million people
went under the knife in 2002, and eighty-eight percent were
women. The number of cosmetic procedures in 1997 was a little
over two million, showing an incredible increase of 228 percent
(ASAPS). As celebrities' dress sizes get smaller, it seems,
cosmetic procedures steadily increase in number.
Cosmetic
surgery, eating disorders, weight loss camps
Many women who do
not turn to plastic surgery to modify their bodies suffer
from eating disorders as a result of media and societal pressures.
It is estimated that five percent of American females, or
seven million nationwide, suffer from either anorexia or bulimia,
and without treatment, twenty percent of these women will
die from the disorder (ANRED 1, 11). Research has found that
girls and young women who were already dissatisfied with their
bodies showed an increase in tendency toward "dieting, anxiety,
and bulimic symptoms after prolonged exposure to fashion and
advertising images in a teen girl magazine" (Media Scope 6).
Excessive dieting, binging and purging, and uncontrollable
exercising are frequently linked to the desire to obtain a
thinner, better-looking body; many women are trading their
health for the chance to live up to the media's standard of
attractiveness. Forty percent of women admit that they would
give up three to five years of their lives in order to achieve
their ideal body weight. According to a recent study, "over
half of the females surveyed between the ages of eighteen
and twenty-five would prefer to be run over by a truck than
be fat, and two-thirds would rather be mean or stupid" (Eating
Disorder Statistics). These statistics demonstrate just how
much physical attractiveness, especially thinness, is valued
in the United States. A great many celebrities who are thought
to have eating disorders are nevertheless idolized for their
thin bodies, such as Lara Flynn Boyle, Calista Flockhart,
and Brittany Murphy. Christina Ricci, who admits having suffered
from anorexia, was praised by the media for having slimmed
down her formerly size-ten body as a result of the disorder.
Cosmetic surgery
and eating disorders can put a heavy toll on an individual's
physical well-being, but there is another popular method young
women turn to as a way of shedding pounds and achieving the
thin ideal. Weight loss camps, or "fat camps," may not be
physically dangerous, but the emotional impact these programs
have on young women can be scarring. Lauren Greenfield's "Girl
Culture" exhibit makes a powerful statement about the prevalent
attitude that places thinness as the ultimate goal, no matter
what the cost. Two photographs, side by side, illustrate the
"before and after" of a group of girls at weight loss camp.
In the first picture, the girls are smiling, their arms around
each other, and they are dressed in brightly colored clothes
that showcase their cheerful nature and good spirits. They
are slightly overweight, but they are jovial and looking forward
to a good time. The second picture shows the same girls, noticeably
thinner. The program has clearly been successful, but there
is something different about these girls, aside from the shapes
of their bodies.
The burden of constant body-consciousness.
The girls are no
longer smiling, their clothes are not brightly colored, and
they look, in fact, relatively miserable. Two of the girls
are not even looking at the camera; the one that does look
has a blank, cheerless expression. They have lost the weight,
but, Greenfield seems to ask, what else have they lost?
The subjects in
Greenfield's weight loss camp photographs seem to be casualties
of the ongoing war between thin and fat, beautiful and ugly.
They have been taught to focus on their bodies as vehicles
through which they will be judged. Their personalities, their
senses of humor, their intelligence, and their senses of self-worth
are encouraged to take a backseat to their physical appearances.
The girls are no longer cheerful and bright, but what does
it matter? They are now thin and beautiful, and society will
embrace them because of that fact. They will no longer feel
alienated from the media; they will no longer suffer the humiliation
of being branded unworthy of idolization. They will, however,
have to live with the burden of constant body-consciousness,
and this constant awareness leaves little room for jovial
spirits.
Media images and
implications contribute to the body-crisis epidemic, and the
media has a responsibility to alleviate the harm in some capacity.
The first step toward improvement is to showcase a variety
of women in roles that portray them as beautiful and sensual
beings. A handful of television shows are doing this already:
Peri Gilpin of Frasier and Sara Rue of Less Than
Perfect prove that curvier women are successful in romantic
roles. Some films have attempted to cast bigger women in romantic
lead roles, such as Kate Winslet in Titanic, Minnie
Driver in Circle of Friends, and Renee Zellweger
in Bridget Jones's Diary. The latter two actresses,
however, took a lot of criticism for their weight in these
roles and quickly slimmed down shortly after the films were
released. In order to convey the message that a woman can
be beautiful no matter what her size or shape, the media must
do its part to illustrate that fact by portraying women of
all shapes and sizes as beautiful. Perhaps then a young woman
like Lillian will believe it's more worthwhile to spend her
time improving her character, rather than her body.
Courtney Littler is a Junior at USC. A Creative Writing major, she hopes to be a freelance novelist in the near future. In 2003, she placed first in the Edward W. Moses Undergraduate Creative Writing competition.
