American Beauty : America The Beautiful

As of recently, the media has been flooded with positive interpretations of beauty standards all over the world. According to various sources, beauty ideals, in women especially, are socially constructed in order to judge a person’s value based on physical attractiveness; therefore, it is highly encouraged that people pay attention to their looks and take care of themselves, in order for others to create a positive first impression of one’s character. It is no secret that beauty standards vary from one culture to the next and it is difficult to establish a universal principle of what is considered beautiful. Many countries’ ideals contrast one another and, as a result, allow for stereotypes to emerge. This is the case between American

While women have made historical strides in the past decades, the culture at large is bound to the narcissistic constraints about how women should look. These unattainable beauty standards, largely proliferated through the media, have drastic impacts on women and their body image. Societal standards of feminine beauty are presented in all forms of popular and alternative media, bombarding women with images that portray the ideal body. Such standards of beauty are almost completely far-fetched for most women. A majority of the celebrities and models seen on television and in advertisements are well below what is considered normal for American women. “The average American woman is 5’4” tall and weighs 140 pounds, while the average American

Through the media society puts out high standards and expectation on women to adhere to what they say is beautiful. Making women judge mental and self consciousness about themselves and even judging other woman in a split second. In the book Mrs. Breedlove speaks on the affect the movies had on her,”She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it with some category in the scale of absolute beauty, and the scale was one she absorbed in full from the silver screen” (122). This explains how the media can cause society to be judgmental among their peer and categorize them as either beautiful or ugly. Giving society room to isolate and antagonize the ugly and adore and idolize the beautiful.

“The average fashion model is over six feet tall and weighs well under 120 pounds.[ In actuality] the average American woman is five feet four inches and weighs 140 pounds and that less than 5 percent of all women have the body type they see in magazines” (Persson, 2012). The fact that women compare themselves to a standard of beauty that only 5% of all women actually have is quite shocking. The representation of women in the media has been set to such unreasonable levels that women feel they aren't beautiful if they don't meet those standards. When did beauty become defined by numbers on a scale? By today's standards, beauty is described by a person's physical appeal. The media's role in the representation

In life, a person with morals is usually very ethical and has high values and strong religious beliefs. These people know right from wrong and prefer to do what they think is right in any given situation. This is what morality is, having the knowledge to know right from wrong. In Dr. Ben Carson’s America the Beautiful, he states that this nation, The United States of America, was founded with the concept of morality in mind. He also arrives at many notable points concerning the concept of morality in American Society and History. These points include: decisions based on status, slavery, the treating of immigrants, and family values and education.

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 an extremely critical issue facing young women today across the country. Beauty standards are changing the way we perceive ourselves. Beauty standards change the way we dress, our make-up, our hair, and our size. We think about what others will think based on how we look. In the morning, while getting dressed, we may say to ourselves, “What will they think?” or “Is this shirt too tight? Too loose?” We wonder if our hair is the right color, or if our teeth are white enough, and the largest standard of all, if we are skinny enough. In a short clip, “Beauty Standards Around the World,” created by Buzzfeed (2014) shows how each country defines beauty. Buzzfeed uses the rhetorical appeals of pathos and logos to effectively convince the viewers that society is manipulating women’s perception of beauty. A young girl sent out a photo with no make-up on and her hair pulled back to photo shop experts around the world. The results were upsetting.

For centuries mankind has unsuccessfully attempted to define beauty. Greek philosophers, including Plato, tried to define beauty as if it were as simple as any other law in nature. However this cannot be so because the idea of what is beautiful has varied throughout cultures and the ages. In the 1800s women who were pale and rather plump were considered objects of desire; but in today’s society, desirable women are slender and tan, among other things. The fact is that today, beauty is as unobtainable as it is indefinable. All of today’s supermodels, as seen in millions of advertisements, have been modified, airbrushed, and photoshopped. Women desiring this beauty have turned to various

Women around the world are continuously striving to reach the beauty ideal set forth by media, literature, and music and although the beauty ideal differs from culture to culture the pressure to achieve this look is enforced just the same throughout each. In many cases, young women will go to any means to achieve this look, completely disregarding a healthy lifestyle. When looking at female American culture, an unachievable body image has become idolized and women are ridiculed if they do not have all the criteria. It would not be wrong to assume that nearly all women would like to feel beautiful, or attractive, however, today’s perception of beauty limits many woman from feeling so. Lilka Areton writes, “[We] have come to believe that as soon

Many people may not realize this, but the media influences our perception of beauty more often than not. Our society have set an unrealistic standard of beauty for women, and we see this through different media vehicles such as on TV and on the Internet. Over the years, the advertisers have succeeded in creating commercials that sends hidden messages on how our society should define beauty. For instance, the thin women shown on TV tells us that they should be envied upon simply because they are more attractive and happier than bigger sized women. Worse, the majority of them or as classified by the media, “fat” women, are shamed and automatically viewed as lazy, unattractive, and unhappy. For this reason, many women feel pressured to adhere to the society’s standards of beauty, because who wants to be labeled fat, lazy, and unhappy anyway? A great example of people who are pressured to conform to our society’s standards are the female Hollywood celebrities. In their desire to be portrayed as “beautiful,” many of them starve themselves and end up suffering from eating disorders such as binge eating, anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Demi Lovato and Kesha are some of the Hollywood stars who confessed suffering from eating disorders and admitted to feeling pressured to achieve and maintain certain body standards. In the book, Y points out Valerie’s habit to constantly check herself in the mirror

“What is a beautiful woman?” (Darius Washington 2014) There are a lot of deep scars in society. Thanks to the media, we have become use to extremely unrealistic standards for beauty. The exemplary that has been dragging society down for the past few millennia is that everything is wrong with you and you need to change yourself to be accepted as beautiful. The media is driving the public’s view of beauty by sending strong messages about physical perfection everywhere we turn. To certain people the media is considered the most influential education resource in today’s

The saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” was first heard in the third century by the Greeks. Meaning that the view on one’s perception of beauty could be another one’s ugly, the standards of what is beautiful and what is not could differ from person to person. The media, which consists of highly edited images of men and women, sets unnatural standards for what is considered beautiful and what is ugly. Often illustrating standards impossible to reach, magazines teach boys and girls that if you are not a certain size in clothes, a certain height, or a certain weight, you are ugly. In the media, they never report the beauty of someone based off of their personality; however, there are always stories about models losing weight, or how great a celebrity looks after plastic surgery. Ultimately, the perception on what is ugly and what is beautiful is highly influenced by the

Socio Cultural morals of feminine beauty are put in all forms of favored media, battering women with images that portray what is advised to be the impeccable body.These morals of beauty are almost completely far-off for most women; a majority of the models advertised on television and in advertisements are below what is considered healthy body weight. Mass media 's use of unrealistic models says an implicit message that in order for a woman to be beautiful, she must be unhealthy.The media puts an image of beauty that is unattainable. They do this by showing very unhealthy stick-thin girls with “flawless” attributes. In the bad world of marketing, the companies that make an item to sell, like makeup, depend on the insecurities of females. The companies use skinny girls with a perfect complexion of the skin and a killer smile to flaunt around with the product they are willing to sell. When women see this, they think to themselves, “ I wish I can look like her.” or “Why can’t i look like that?.” Because we only display skinny girls in our media, they feel as if that is how they should be and look like. The media contradictorily influences girls’ perception of body image, which can cause eating disorders and low self-esteem. Dove surveyed 1,027 women with the ages of 18 and 64. The results showed that women are more than twice as likely to say that their conception of beauty is shaped by “women in the public domain” and social media (29 percent and 25 percent, respectively)

At the turn of the 21st century, when the movie American Beauty was released, Americans were realizing that when examined from the interior, traditional nuclear families did not posses the picturesque characteristics that they were previously thought to be associated with. Many families have issues, but there can sometimes be deeper problems within each member. It is my belief that American Beauty accurately depicts common psychological disorders in individuals, adults or adolescents. Depression, narcissism, schizophrenia and adjustment disorders are just a few of the issues that can accumulate and result in divorce or other hardships in families that have become so prevalent in American society. At first only a few of the characters seem

It 's not a mystery that society 's ideals of beauty have a drastic and frightening effect on women. Popular culture frequently tells society, what is supposed to recognize and accept as beauty, and even though beauty is a concept that differs on all cultures and modifies over time, society continues to set great importance on what beautiful means and the significance of achieving it; consequently, most women aspire to achieve beauty, occasionally without measuring the consequences on their emotional or physical being. Unrealistic beauty standards are causing tremendous damage to society, a growing crisis where popular culture conveys the message that external beauty is the most significant characteristic women can have. The approval of prototypes where women are presented as a beautiful object or the winner of a beauty contest by evaluating mostly their physical attractiveness creates a faulty society, causing numerous negative effects; however, some of the most apparent consequences young and adult women encounter by beauty standards, can manifest as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders that put women’s life in danger, professional disadvantage, and economic difficulty.