I'd love to hear your reactions. Feel free to leave an essay. I'm so passionate about this topic. I love hearing how different people interpret it.
Big Fat LOVE YOURSELF Love,
Nanette
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Body Image and Advertising.
A dear friend of mine who is making a documentary about pornography addiction and our society is always posting some of the most INTERESTING articles, videos and advertisements. So if you have something like 40 minutes and care about how advertising shapes our culture (eating disorders, body image, sexualizing food)... you should probably watch these youtube videos.
I'd love to hear your reactions. Feel free to leave an essay. I'm so passionate about this topic. I love hearing how different people interpret it.
Big Fat LOVE YOURSELF Love,
Nanette
I'd love to hear your reactions. Feel free to leave an essay. I'm so passionate about this topic. I love hearing how different people interpret it.
Big Fat LOVE YOURSELF Love,
Nanette
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I JUST posted this on my blog a few days ago! I was blown away by this speaker.
ReplyDeleteI think it just makes me realize that I need to accept my body "flaws" and all. The "perfection" I'm aiming for does not exist.
That's awesome! I'll have to check out your blog. :)
DeleteIt's so bizarre. I feel like I was more affected by this when I was younger and inundated by TV and magazine ads. I tell you what, my life has improved so much by not having a TV and cancelling my mag subscriptions.
Nanette! Thank you so much for posting this! We are living in an world full of fake food and fake photoshopped bodies and fake lives on Facebook (ok those are real, but they show all the best & fun and give us a skewed version of someone's life) and this was a great video to remind us that real people, don't look like this. Cindy Crawford wishes she looked like Cindy Crawford? Pure gold.
ReplyDelete“But I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants
This maybe seems stupid and not so much about advertising, more about the images used in magazines and news sites. I remember about 2 years ago I read Perez Hilton's blog every single day, checking it every few hours for updates. I was into celeb news and I would read post after post on that site of negative crap about how ugly someone was, how fat someone was, how much of a failure someone was and I would leave the site feeling down every time, even though it never clicked. It was only after one particular Jennifer Aniston post which I read and felt like telling him to STFU, that I stopped reading the site and never went back.
ReplyDeleteI was immediately uplifted without reading the bullying, draining drivel that he writes and I noticed this again a year later when I stopped reading the weekly celeb gossip magazines. People always say that adverts and magazines play on people's insecurities and you realise it's true after a while!
The irony is that Perez is not the most attractive person on the planet. Why is he throwing stones?
DeleteNanette, thank you for an awesome post! I am visiting from the RFSC and I am finally making it to the blogs that linked up! This post is so interesting to me because when I was in my very early 20s I was modeling in Puerto Rico and got a few casting calls in New York to see some of the top modeling agencies. Now mind you, I was 6'1" and my weight was 135. So basically skin and bones, not because of a disorder but because I was built like that plus I was into track and field. When I went to the agencies, they all told me the same: you have to drop between 10-15 pounds. It was the first time someone made me feel fat. I remember by the time I got to the last agent, and he said the same thing I told him "The only way I can do that is by being bulimic or anorexic, I cannot drop those pounds because that is unhealthy". He had the nerve to tell me then that this business was not for me. And my answer to him was "You're damn right". And never looked back and have not regretted choosing my health over modeling. So, whenever I see the super skinny girls on ads, it makes me mad.
ReplyDeleteNow, on the same token, I think the beauty industry is getting better about body image. My 16 yr. old niece is also skin and bones now and when she went to a modeling agent he told her that she was too skinny, and she needed to gain some weight. So, yes, I think we have a long ways to go but I believe the industry is trying to change its standards.
That is just INSANE! 6'1! and 135. You were already "underweight" according to the BMI scales. I'm glad you left instead of giving in to the pressure.
DeleteLike the second segment mentioned, I love that they're going to be posting things like "this ad has been photoshopped" on magazine ads. I couldn't see it when I was younger. I thought that they were beautiful. I couldn't see the disproportion of head to hip ratios, or the lengthening and slimming of arms. So if someone were naive like me, it would be informative.
It was definitely worth watching both clips in their entirety. The presentation was excellent.
ReplyDeleteHer final words are most important, in my opinion. The advertising industry and the images/connotations that are linked with sex and attractiveness will not change any time soon ... but increasing awareness and educating ourselves, our friends, our younger generation is where the impact where really come to take shape.
I agree. Information about body image and the capabilities of photoshop is so much more prevalent now. I can only hope that the next round of girls don't fall victim to everything media tells them.
DeleteI just got around to sitting down and watching these videos. Amazing. I don't know if I ever consciously compared myself to models in ads or on tv when I was a teenager, but I knew that at 5'0" and 125 lbs, I was way too curvy for the Jordache jeans my 5'9", 110 lbs classmates wore every day. My dream was to be tall and skinny just so I could wear them too!
ReplyDelete