Watching miss representation was not shocking to me. I've seen how much the media may influence a person. What kindof took me by surprise however was to see the average percent of teenage girls who try to alter themselves in order to fit within society's ideals. I knew that some girls were unhappy with the way they looked but I didn't know that 62% of girls go on diets etc in order to look a certain way. Also, another thing that was shocking to me was the idea that girls have been influenced ever since they were young. For example, Disney princess Ariel is seen wearing only a bikini and showing alot of skin. Because tons of little girls admire Ariel, they too would be wanting to wear tiny bikinis in order to be just like Ariel. Almost every single show that has a female playing an important role is skinny. I dont think I've never seen a show where the leading female actors are fat, "normal-acting" people. If there were, they would probably be seen as the stereotypical b*tch or comedian. An example of this would be "Sadie" from Awkward or "Fat Amy" from Pitch Perfect. Even if seen as bitchy or funny fat girls, there would always be a scene where they try to look better by losing weight. "Sadie" appears to be strong and objective to "skitches" (skinny b*tches) but ends up starving herself in one of the episodes. The media's intentions of promoting good health for all is great but its stretching the idea of "good health" too far. Instead of promoting society's idea of the prefect, healthy, and toned body, maybe they should start promoting self confidence. This needs to be done as soon as possible. A person should live life happy and not restricted to society's unrealistic ideals. If a person is happy at 200 lbs, regardless of health issues, so be it.
The percentage of girls who went on diets to look a certain way definitely surprised me too! Majority of those diets are very unhealthy for those girls who are trying to lose weight and the cause of those unhealthy diets are due to the high standards of the media's idea of beauty. Girls are influenced at a young age to look a certain way and one of those influences are the princesses in Disney Movies. I wish that Disney would come up with a movie that has an even more powerful woman lead who do not look so... ideal.
ReplyDeleteI find it so sad that girls feel as though they have to change the way they look in order to be confident in their bodies. I wish we lived in a world were there was no judgement, but we dont. I cant even remember how many times I've heard about someone cutting themselves or committing suicide because of being bullied about their weight or the way they look.
ReplyDeleteI've also noticed the way women are portrayed in Disney films. Not only are they all beautiful and skinny, but they all also need to have a man in their lives in order to "live happily ever after" and that's just sad.
The fact that girls feel this way at such a young age is completely terrible. This truly shows that our society's sexist judgements and views affect women and also men at an age when they are unable to think for the elves. The corruption of our society has kept from the past and present into the future through the infection of our younger generations. This is such a sad truth of our society that must be stopped immediately.
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