Susan Bordo, Maggie Wykes/Barrie Gunter, and Naomi Wolf all wrote extremely descriptive and informative pieces on the marketing tactics used by food and magazine companies to influence the minds, self views, and eating habits of women and men in our society. It seems like more and more each day we are hearing stories of ordinary people and celebrities who were and still are secretly struggling with serious life threatening eating disorders and self disgust which leads them to be depressed or commit suicide once they can no longer handle the urges to be ‘acceptable’ and the demonic voices inside of their head telling them that they are not “perfect”. Which is why the U.S. is one of the unhealthiest, obese and anorexic countries in the world, it is not too hard to see how media negatively influences our culture of the ideal woman on those who don’t feel as if they are ideal.
Susan Bordo beautifully describes in ‘"Hunger as Ideology" from Unbearable Weight’ how food companies use their product as a way to fill the emptiness and voids that women have within. “For women, the emotional comfort of self-feeding is rarely turned to in a state of pleasure and independence, but in despair, emptiness, loneliness and desperation. Food Is, as one woman put it, “the only thing that will take care of me”. Bordo also goes on to compare it in relation to a man’s love of food. “Men can eat and be loved; indeed, a central mode by which they receive love is through food from women. For women, by contrast (who are almost never shown being fed by others), eating – in the form of private, self-feeding – is represented as a substitute for human love.” (Bordo, 126) This is an extremely true statement because in almost every story that we hear from a woman struggling with their weight, the common theme is “once my man left me, I became depressed and started eating. Then I couldn’t stop…the next thing I know I am 400 pounds and now nobody really wants me, so I keep eating because I hate myself and what I have become”. Or they would blame their secret love of food on being bullied on school as a child or young adult; or by being abused by somebody they trusted; or any other factor relating to another human being’s actions to them. Knowing that a lot of women in today’s society are struggling with inner self loathing companies are marketing their products to almost replace the man in their lives and say fuck the world, just enjoy that Ice Cream or whatever their product is, and all of your problems will disappear. Next thing you know, there are women living a secret life that even the closest people to them in their lives have no clue about. They sit quietly in the dark at night and take the food that they smuggled from under their bed, bed sheets, or pillows and eat it like a rat scared of being caught in the light.
Bordo also describes how Bell Hooks relates African American women with this eating disorder to “a space of care and nurturance for the healing of deep wounds made by racism, sexism, and poverty”. It is no secret that a lot of African American women are trying their best to become more acceptable and beautiful by bleaching their skin to make it lighter, buying weaves and hair extensions, and doing whatever they can to be wanted by men. It is very hard these days to find an African American woman who is all natural, due to the influence of what she sees in the media and advertisements all around her, as well as other women she sees as her “competition” who are of other races and are depicted by mainstream as being “exotic”, “in demand”, or “wanted” by men.
A lot of big corporations nowadays market the “bite size” or “small portion” of foods to subconsciously trick women into believing that they are not eating a large portion of the food, so it’s ok if they have a few small portions and that would satisfy them. The truth is, the small portions does not satisfy them and they would eat more and more of it. Next thing you know they have bags and bags of small portions that they eat every other hour or so, thus making it a large serving overall. At the end, they wonder why they are getting overweight and other health related problems by trying to overindulge in the small servings, which they originally thought was a good idea, and unfortunately it turns out not to be. “Satisfy your urge to splurge in five delicious bite-size ways…indulge a little…dive in” (Bordo, 129)
Wykes and Gunter, took it a step further by providing valuable statistics on the after effects of over eating and being obese in ‘"Conclusion" from The Media and Body Image’. “74 percent of both men and women felt they had a better sex when they felt good about their bodies. 41 percent felt the media was responsible for dictating public perceptions of the ideal body shape.” (Wykes, Gunter, 205). I personally know a lot of women who refuse to have any sexual contact because they hate the way their stomach, breast, or other body parts sag or hangs, so much they either they don’t have any sex at all or they do it with the lights off. This puts a huge strain on relationships and self worth, and it leads to unfortunate issues down the line in the relationship. The plastic surgery industry is making more and more Billions of dollars each year and people are going to extreme lengths to nip tuck their ‘problem areas’ so that they will appear more acceptable to the men and their mates. While in reality, they would never truly see themselves as ‘good’ even after the dangerous costly procedure is done; as a result most time they develop an addiction to plastic surgery, which sometimes lead to disfigurement or death. Some would even take a tremendous chance and go to South America and do the surgery there where the price is 5 times cheaper than the U.S., but a lot more risky since the doctors are not always qualified and certified or use sanitary instruments. Wykes and Gunter, later go on to describe how in order to be famous in our society; a person must be independent and attractive, as well as have their sexual success and financial success both modeled on a certain body image type. (Wykes, Gunter, 212). This pretty much forces everybody who wants to be in the entertainment industry to not be their unique self, but be like Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, Angelina Jolie, Mariah Carey, and countless others to sell “the look”.
Wolf says in ‘"Culture" from The Beauty Myth’ that women are allowed a mind or a body but not both. To me this shows that in order to be a desirable person, you have to be a sexual object for men and not have any personality, intelligence or cause to believe in. If you do have any of those things, then either you are physically unattractive and mean; or too intimidating to men that nobody would want you. This brings phrase of the attractive but ‘dumb blonde’ stereotype for attractive women who just say “okay” to everything and smile to men. The media loves to pick this type of woman as their ideal woman in all of their advertisements, whether it be in print, TV or motion pictures. Men love them because they are easy on the eyes (and to get in bed) and won’t challenge them intellectually or give them a hard time. On the contrary, most real life blonde women are the opposite of this mold and are highly offended by this type of ‘blonde’ that people tend to compare them to when they are being looked at.
In conclusion, I think a good way to combat these damaging advertisement and marketing strategies with anti-advertisement is to simply have positive organizations create and distribute positive advertisements about body, self-esteem, self-empowerment and love everywhere in billboards, magazines and television and this would hopefully reduce the negative effect of the Media’s ideal body image for young women and adults. If people see more positive Ads then negative, they would feel fine just the way they are and wont feel a need or urge to change into somebody else that they are not. Dove is a great example of a positive advertising company with their Campaign for Real Beauty geared at building women’s self esteem. They feature young and old women of all sizes, featured in bra’s and panties in their commercials. They also have a commercial called “Dove Evolution” that shows how a simple appearing woman can be transformed by the power of makeup and Photoshop. This is a process that they do to most models who really do not look like that in real life. Nobody is really perfect in all the areas of their body in real life. Not even the models. A great anti-advertisement advocacy group is this. They hold protests, movements and other forms of outcries against the media’s rule of image and universal beauty.
I think your suggested solution can also be lucrative to companies. The Dove add is so positive and fun -- it makes me want to buy their products. Also, I hadn't seen the Dove evolution video; we (consumers) suspect this but it's compelling to see it in action.
ReplyDeleteThank you Mary, I am glad that you like my solutions and Dove campaign image. They have great products, check it out :)
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