Everywhere you look we have billboards, posters, ads, and magazines with images of beautiful people on them. It is these pictures that capture not only their physical perfection, but their delightful lives; the majority of them portraying females. Women full of happiness and sheer bliss including their super brilliant white teeth, long luscious hair, and sexy curves sending a message that if we can posses these attributes then we, too can have a satisfactory life. Beyoncé recently addressed the issue of unattainable beauty standards, as well as the struggle for true happiness in her new song and music video “Pretty Hurts” where she depicts how obsessively hurtful it is to want to be perfect or the epitome of beauty. Surgeries becoming …show more content…
These are dangerous extremes that can very rapidly become a health problem and life threatening. Obsession is a big problem according to Dr. Roxanne Guy, who is president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, some end up turning to plastic surgery in order “to fill an emotional need” (Allison Adato). When changing your appearance becomes an “emotional need” it has also become very dangerous. Happiness and self satisfaction should not be achievable only through drastic physical alterations. Beauty should never come at such a high cost when the infatuation with beauty becomes too much you stop enjoying life, it is not worth it. The restraining jacket she is wearing in the surgeon 's room represents societies restraint on her from accepting who she is because society said so. It 's ironic when they ask her what her “aspiration in life is” and she answers with happiness when up to now the video has shown her to be too preoccupied about her weight and appearance she forgets to enjoy much of anything. The thing that stood out the most was the label she wore around her body stating “miss 3rd ward” which “ is a reference to the Houston neighborhood where she grew up “(Lily Harrison) and what I interpreted as her not being good enough to be first place. In an interview Beyonce explains how “her message behind this album was finding the beauty in imperfection. I had this image of a trophy and me
Women who are celebrities feel that if society is against them if they are overweight, allowing them not to be able to stand in front of the spotlight. Home states, “Celebrities face a great percent of pressure to amount to unrealistic beauty standards” (Home). There are many people who feel that it is okay to make celebrities feel as if they should take no place in being overweight, and be as skinny as the unrealistic beauty standards that are broadcasted over the world. Deaton states in an article, “Did she eat all her backing singers” (Denton). In a post, Kelly Clarkson received a statement that someone made about her, calling her overweight. Society believes that all celebrities should be as skinny as possible due to always being in the
The topic that I strongly believe is a significant issue in society today is the feminine beauty standards that are established by society. Who is to blame for today’s insane beauty standards? I believe society has shaped us by making us think that we should look or act a certain way in order to fit in society.
After taking a glimpse of what “Finding My Eye-Dentity”, More and More Young Women Choose Surgical ‘Perfection’”, and “Before Spring Break the Anorexic Challenge” were about, you can see that we are slowly wiping out our naturally beautiful females and males. Parents, girls/boys, lovers, and friends are very influential in our lives. However, how much can we let someone else control the way we look? Beautiful is different and comes in different shape, color, and size. If we continue to place models and actresses/actors on a pedestal, then nothing will change. Women and men will continue to ‘perfect’ their body. Beautiful. Everyone wants to look beautiful,
In our modern superficial world, there are people who are solely known for their good looks. It doesn’t matter how beautiful you may be or how beautiful you may think you are, the media will distort your mindset to make you have an idea that you could be better one way or another. With the growing industry that is Cosmetic Surgery people can now copy and paste parts of their body, they don’t take a fondness for. The beauty standard that is demanded by society and the media has caused body-image issues, addiction to surgery, and the traumatic death involved in cosmetic surgery.
What makes someone beautiful? This striking question has always had a complex answer rather than simple. Society makes their interpretation of beauty with many standards that qualify for the “most beautiful people” in the world. America's picture of the perfect lady is extremely thin however full figured. America’s picture of the perfect gentleman is also thin, yet very fit. It’s always one thing or the other, never one choice. The public has their own particular rendition of what beauty looks like, yet american beauty happens to have a stance amongst the most startling standards. These standards of beauty that women see each day impact their confidence and self-esteem negatively only to push them to discover ways to fit into these unrealistic beauty criterias. Beauty standards in America are ever-changing, but society has yet to absolutely accept the average, everyday woman.
Beauty standards are portrayed everywhere: on magazines, social media, ads, commercials, and even flaunted among peers. While the ideals are supposed to promote health awareness, fitness motivation, and self love, it unfortunately results in many unfavorable consequences. Women are constantly “penalized for not being beautiful and at the same time are stigmatized, even pathologized, for not feeling beautiful, for having low self-esteem, for engaging in behaviors like dieting and excessive exercising, or for having eating disorders” (Johnston and Taylor 954). Beauty standards are unrealistic and unhealthy to pursue, and misinforms the public on what true beauty is. While not all beauty image ideals promote negative feelings and dissatisfaction, many believe that the negative effects far outweighs any positive effects.
All of this information just shows how people are being told to change to fit what is beautiful now. Everyone is beautiful in their own ways, yet we overlook these because they aren’t at the same level as everyone else. We should not root ourselves in society’s version of beauty because of how often it changes. Society’s current version of beautiful includes being photoshopped, participating in extreme dieting or exercise compulsion, having plastic surgery and other surgeries such as a gastric bypass or bariatric surgery (Afful). They aren’t actually the person we see in the magazines, so why are we basing our entire standard of American beauty around a group of females whose BMI is under the average? Shouldn’t we be focusing it on the American
In society today, the standards of beauty are set by media, which strongly correlates beauty with perfection. Particularly towards women, media portrays an unrealistic and unattainable ideal look that females should strive for. Unfortunately, in the process of attaining this perfect figure, a female’s happiness is sacrificed because of the extremes women must go through to achieve perfection. In the music video “Pretty Hurts,” by Beyoncé Knowles, portrays the negative effects of society’s standards on a female’s body, mentally, physically, and emotionally. The song is considered in the genre of power pop because of the meaningful and insightful message the music video tries to convey for viewers.
Beyoncé sends a strong message of the dangers of pursuing perfection and the struggle that we go through as women to maintain this difficult standard of beauty. In the chorus of the song, Beyoncé sings “perfection is a disease of a nation/it's the soul that needs a surgery.” Beyoncé points directly to the fact that the media promotes unachievable beauty standards for women all over the world. By calling the obsession with perfection a disease, Beyoncé not only infers how infectious the obsession is but how many women and teens are affected by the medias ideas of beauty as she sings out in her lyrics “Blonder hair, flat chest,TV says, "Bigger is better. “South beach, sugar free. Vogue says, "Thinner is better”. Though many individual turn to plastic surgery to change their appearance on the outside it doesn’t really change who they are, Beyoncé sings “it’s the soul that needs a surgery.” The soul is who you are on the inside, and has nothing to do with outside appearance. The soul can be seen by how we act and treat others, it is who we really are as persons and is in no way defined by physical
In the song, Pretty Hurts by Beyoncé we see the different societal messages that are expressed through the lyrics, music and the music video. We see the stereotypical image society forces us to be, the way people react if they don’t live up to those standards and the ongoing contest between people to be pretty. In the song, we see the stereotypical images society has pressured us to look like. This terrible image is that every has to be pretty and skinny. In the lyrics “Perfection is the disease of a nation” we see that this image portrayed by society is like a disease.
We return to this golden aspect, believing in the exterior rather than what is actually inside, why are women wanting to become so perfect? Why do they want to become something so different from who they really are? As humans, we live life by what we believe what is correct and honest. What really are the ‘correct’ matters to deal with Beauty? What truly are the ‘honest’ perceptions of Beauty? Should we believe society’s representations? Society has become a fog of ignorance, feeding us with unrealistic ideals and luring us into believing that to be beautiful we must present ourselves a certain way, all for what? We then become trapped in this mindset compelled to fit with society’s thinking. However, consider this, in the end whose thoughts really matter at the end of the day, yourself or someone
We are constantly surrounded by images of the “perfect” woman. She is tall, thin and beautiful. She rarely looks older than 25, has a flawless body, and her hair and clothes are always perfect. She is not human. She is often shown in pieces – a stomach, a pair of legs, a beautifully made up eye or mouth. Our culture judges women, and women judge themselves, against this standard. It is forgotten that “beauty pornography”, as Wolf says, focuses on underweight models that are usually 15 to 20 years old. Flaws, wrinkles and other problems are airbrushed out of the picture.
There are many beauty standards but weight and body size is slowly becoming the main focus. These standards give a false sense of hope of having the “perfect body.” Instead of letting beauty standards be socially accepted, people should be aware of the harm they cause. Celebrities are role models to various people around the world and they are criticized for their appearance. Many of these celebrities go out and get plastic surgery, Botox injections, and Silicone implants. People that a lot of money and higher status are more likely to be able to live up to these standards. Some women are willing to sacrifice comfort and tolerate the pain to achieve them.
With the media being a very popular way of communication and self expression in today’s culture, it influences the way of younger generations to be more involved in today’s technology, and to allow them to influence the world by the press of a button. But one of the topics that is very controversial is that in today’s society is the high expectations of what they think a girl has to look like, from girls not having stretch marks or scars, to magazines and photographers using photoshop to convince readers that the model looks like that. With all of these being factors that there is pressure is high for many girls around the world, this has to resolved.
A young girl may hear a variety of tips on how to beautify herself, but do these pieces of advice make her genuinely happy? That sometimes depends on the music she hears around her, particularly on the radio. Many hit pop contemporary radio singles, generally performed by female recording artists, encourage a distorted perception of beauty that leads to the state of perception, which is usually nearly impossible to achieve. However, a select group of songs by female performers and their accompanying music videos promote the ideology that young women and girls do not have to make dramatic changes to their body or appearance to be perceived as beautiful. This message is widely spread by singers including Beyoncé, Meghan Trainor, and Alessia Cara.