Media has a huge role in telling people how they "should look". Today's media targets everyone from toddlers to the elderly. Many people's ideas of what is attractive, beautiful, good, bad, etc. are formed by what they see in the media.
In the media everyone fits a criteria that is not necessarily the norm for everyone else. For example, many people aspire to look like the people they see in magazines or on television. They feel like they are obligated to lose weight, dye their hair, or buy certain clothes to fit in with the rest of the world. They are misled to believe it is normal to look like those models, yet don't realize that the models they aspire to be only represent a small fraction of the population. There are too many models, actors, or any other social icons that fit the same body type. Not everyone in the world is tall, skinny, with flowing hair.
I also feel that minorities aren't represented enough in these ads. It goes back to the point I made in the previous paragraph. The media should do a better job at representing people from all cultures, races, etc. Families portrayed by the media are misleading as well. Each family includes one father, one mother, and usually two or three children. The media almost doesn't represent any families that don't fit this mold. Single parent homes, families that don't have children, step-parents, homosexual couples, etc. seem to be looked upon by the media as less appealing.
I agree. I think the media excludes things that they think are less appealing to people. The perfectness of entertainment is creating a society that sets themselves up for failure.
ReplyDeleteThe media does nothing to fit the mold of a normal person. We would all rather be unhealthy and beautiful than healthy. Don't you agree? And it is sad that this is what our society has come to. People starve themselves and do other abusive things to look "beautiful." It is sickening. Yes, some of it is our fault that we would do anything to be pretty, but the media has helped us get there by portraying the wrong ideas. I wish more commercials were like the Dove ones, we would have a lot of more self assured women in the world.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the ideas we have are influenced by the media. What we see these models, actors, and actresses do we all do. This is only because the population as a whole is underrepresented in the media. It's sad, but it does happen. I wish the media would include regular looking people in their advertisements, but it appears that won't happen until you become famous.
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