Let's hit them where it hurts them.. THEIR WALLET.

The media is everywhere, surrounding us and enclosing us to listen, to feel anxious and fall under consumerism. And what TV emphasizes the most is that the party girls, the beautiful girls, they are the ones becoming famous. They are the ones that get the most attention and boys, therefore why wouldn’t little girls want to be like them?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JCaDHqzKi8

This song is so catchy and yet when you listen to the lyrics it is disgusting, “But I don’t wanna study, I just wanna party”, “look at me mum, I’m dressing like a... bitch”.  It is absolutely fine to want to party once in a while and have fun, but to dress like a “bitch”? To not want to study? This is the example that’s being given to younger girls everywhere. It is either “beauty-without-intelligence or intelligence-without-beauty” (Wolf, pg 59). Yet, the “beauty-without-intelligence” girl: Kim Kardashian is being listened to and watched 10x more than the “intelligence-without-beauty” girl: Hilary Clinton.

 “As Margaret Mead once said, today our children are not brought up by parents, they are brought up by the mass media.” (Kilbourne, pg129). It has always seems like the prime target for advertisement are teenagers, but as years have gone by, more kids are being surrounded by media. Now, it feels like children are being influenced more at even younger ages. And therefore, they are being taught by it rather than by their parents, usually because their parents are too busy working to try to buy their children all the stuff they “want.” More like stuff that the media tells them to want.

 The “quest for a body as thin as the models becomes a prison for many women and girls” (Killbourne, pg138). Not just their thinness, their flawless skin, their perfect smiles, and luscious hair.  And this is being brought up at even younger and younger ages. Think of Toddlers and Tiaras. This show represents the ways media has taken over these poor little girls’ lives. The worst part is, that both, the parents and the media are in an agreement to sexualize and objectify the little girls into sexy little babies. Tom Hanks does a parody of the show with his daughter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPLWKBWkn3s

           

The parody is funny to us because we know it’s true. The obsessed parent that wants a dream of their own implied on their children. How they exaggerate their hair with wigs, get fake teeth, huge poofy dresses, learn sexy dances, and worst of all say vulgar things like, “talk dirty to me”. Though, don’t give me wrong, it’s a great song. Out of all the lines in the song, that’s the last one a little girl should be saying. But the sexier they are, the more they seem to win prices. What can be further done with this video is actually become proactive. Actually have moments of criticism and maybe create a movement to regulate the pageants more. Perhaps create a proposal on what can be done to change the attitudes that are so embedded in it. The only problem with all of this is money. The government and businesses want money, if regulating the show results into a decrease in their wallets, they won’t listen. Therefore we need the consumers to boycott, that way they will change whatever is more appealing to us because they essentially just want our money.

            Naomi Wolf points out that the “Beauty myth today serves government and the economy,” hence why it’s so hard to stop the mass production of advertisement that emphasizes on the idealized man and woman. "Ads work in part by generating dissatisfaction and by offering images of transformation, of a 'new you'"(Kellner 130), i.e. they point out your insecurities, which builds up your anxiety and with that, they give you a quick fix to all your problems through materialism. Meanwhile, they should be doing it by fixing it internally, to improve self-confidence.

Steinem tries to diverge from the mainstream and create an alternative media. She, with others started a magazine called Ms. to “provide a forum where women and advertisers could talk to each other and improve advertising itself” (Steinem, pg 112). Hearing about it first seemed an excellent way to begin to change other magazines that are so shallow. It even inspired me to, perhaps one day, become the owner of a magazine that does just that. But later, Steinem mentions the struggles of keeping the magazine going. How hard it is to get other companies to indulge in advertisement that lacks the objectification of the female body. Some companies even insulted the readers of the magazine and claimed those were not his consumers, therefore why would he try to sell to them. The only way to actually commence this change is educate more people on these obvious tactics constantly used in media. The younger they’re educated, the better. That way, we can then strive to emphasize to the media that this is not what we want, and they will OBVIOUSLY change it because all they want to do is MAKE MONEY.

Kilbourne, Jean. “Beauty and the Beast of Advertising." Gender, Race and Class in Media.  Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003.

Steinem, Gloria. “Sex, Lies and Advertising.” Gender, Race and Class in Media.  Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003. 

Kellner, Douglas. “Reading Images Critically Toward a Postmodern Pedagogy.” Gender, Race and Class in Media. Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003.

Wolf, Naomi. “Culture”. The Beauty Myth How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. United States Of America, 2002. 58-85. Print.