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Advertising In Advertising

Decent Essays

The advertising world has shaped society’s views of beauty and what women should aim to look like. Advertisements are plastered everywhere. They are on billboards, the sides of trains and buses, as well as social media networks. People were only exposed to the advertisements of photoshopped models and celebrities with “perfect” bodies on magazine covers and in television commercials, but nowadays, due to the media, we are frequently exposed to them. In “Real Women on Real Beauty”, Kimberly Bissell points out the advertising usually sends out the distorted message that “the thin ideal is possible with the right amount of effort and self-sacrifice” and therefore, “women spend a lot of time and energy trying to obtain something that is not only superficial, but also impossible” (Bissell 659). To make the whole situation worse, the industry uses both models and photoshopping software to ensure that the ads would show the “perfect” woman, instead of using people with average body types. Even though models are already thin, they are photoshopped to appear even thinner by the media’s usage of a “digital diet”, where editors shave the sides of models, making their bodies appear flawless (Bissell 664).
Because the media has placed an idea in the public’s mind that all models are thin and perfect, it’s unlikely to see women with asymmetrical curves and imperfections in advertisements. People see the images in the media and this results in their desire to be thin and perfectly toned. Photoshopped photos are encouraging women to aim to have the “ideal” yet unhealthy and unattainable body type. Billboards, magazines, advertisements, and the media end up influencing women to make their bodies look like the bodies of models. Unfortunately, women do not understand that this body type is not safe or even possible to achieve.
Even though the photos of models on billboards are photoshopped and not real, women are always complaining about how they aren’t as pretty as the models. It is sad to say that it is benefitting no one and it makes people feel bad about themselves. Because society has carved the idea that we need to be someone we are not in order to look beautiful, it has promoted women to diet and change their size and

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