The Media's
Influence on Female Body Image
Part 2 of 4
Here are examples of images before and after computer editing
In the images shown above a real woman has become a cyber woman. Computer animation in the past lacked the ability to create and show detail, which resulted in computer generated women being too perfect, i.e. they lacked wrinkles and blemishes. They looked obviously fake. Today, we remove the details from images to create perfection. The imperfect has now become perfect, the desired. Open the latest copy of any popular magazine and look at the women in the advertisements. Do you see wrinkles or blemishes, or is their skin and shape "unnaturally perfect"? If you buy and use the products they endorse will you be just as perfect as they are, can you be as perfect as they appear to be?
The following images allow us to compare how this woman sees herself when she looks in a mirror versus how we see her in the media. Which images more accurately represent what you see when you look in a mirror? Will you ever resemble her media image?
Would the Real Madonna Please Standup!
In the image shown on the right, more than a little photo manipulation has been used to sell a product. Will the product deliver the advertised results? Does Madonna actually use their product, or have they merely paid for the rights to use her image? Has she even seen the advertisement? Doesn't Madonna look like a mannequin in the altered image; too perfect? Do you want to look like a mannequin, or a real woman?
If this is how the public perceives you, would you perhaps be motivated to undergo plastic surgery? I don't know that Madonna has or would have plastic surgery, I am simply making a point. If you idolize her, what would you be willing to do to be just like her? What does it do to your self esteem if you aren't as perfect as she appears to be? What is the price for being a "material girl?"
Misrepresented Role Models
The publishing and movie industries are less than subtle about altering the appearance of the women that adorn their magazines covers and movie posters, as demonstrated in the following examples.
Despite Keira Knightley's popularity and fame the media in the United States hinders her ability to be a positive role model for teenage girls and adult women with equally small breasts.
material reveals her flat chest and right, in
the US version, she boasts a fuller chest"
"Keira Knightley is furious because her breasts are always made bigger on American movie posters.
"The 'Pirates of the Caribbean' star, who has always insisted she is happy with her modest assets, says she is sick of seeing herself on the front cover of magazines and in ads with digitally blown up boobs.
"She said: "I don't have any t**s, so I can't show cleavage. But you're not actually allowed to be on a magazine cover in the US without at least a C cup because it turns people off.
"Apparently they have done market research and found that women want to see no less than a C cup on other women. Isn't that crazy? So they make my t**s bigger."
"The 21-year-old actress' chest was famously enlarged for the 'King Arthur' posters, in which she played Guinevere.
"Keira said: "Those things certainly weren't mine. I remember we had an interesting discussion when they said, 'We want to make them slightly larger and you'll get approval', and I was like. 'Okay, fine. I honestly don't give a s**t'." (Bang Showbiz)"
The article quoted above was originally published on July 14, 2006. Source
In reality the size of Keira's breasts is somewhere between the two extremes shown above. In the photo on the left her breasts have been compressed by her costume and on the right they are digitally enhanced. The three images shown below more accurately reveal the size of her breasts, though I believe she is below her ideal weight in these images, which may result in her breasts being smaller than they otherwise would be. Despite the small size of her breasts I believe she looks surprisingly buxom in a series of video captures from one of her films, during which she revealed her bare breasts. The apparent size of a woman's breasts is greatly dependent on how they are presented to the viewer.
Another thing to note about the modified image is, even as skinny as Keira is, they altered her stomach as well. Observe in the altered image how the strips of leather in front of her abdomen angle to the right, while in the original they angle to the left, and her stomach does the same in each. Is this an achievable example to idolize and follow?
Here is a second example involving Emma Watson, the actress who plays Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movie series. Note how her right breast has been slightly enlarged in the image shown on the right.
Shown below is how she truly looked at the beginning of 2008:
Why is it that movie producers are more than willing to cast teenage girls and adult women with small breasts in their movies, and the public is equally willing to go see them, yet the advertising community says these women don't receive the public's "approval?" Why do we frequently see actresses with small and even tiny breasts in scenes featuring nudity, and celebrity image databases feature these same women, if no one wants to see them and their modest breasts? Doesn't the popularity of Goldie Hawn, and her daughter Kate Hudson, over the past 40 years stand in stark contrast to their claim?
Despite Kate's beauty and popularity she too was electronically enhanced in a 2008 promotional movie poster for the film Fool's Gold.
