Cultural phenomena such as the sharing of ‘selfies’ (e.g. on Instagram), the screening of surgical makeovers on numerous television programs, and the use of Photoshop to enhance the appearance of models used in advertising, create great pressure on people to take radical steps such as having cosmetic surgery or resorting to extreme dieting.
Do you agree with this statement? Why / why not?
Since the upsurge of plastic surgery failure has worried global citizens, people try to sort out the stem of the problem, which are cultural phenomena. Cultural phenomena are the process of growing a prevalent trend not only in a local region, but also in a global term. Sometimes, cultural phenomena are promoted in the media. Undoubtedly, cultural phenomena have exerted pressure on people to take cruel steps in order to satisfy the beauty expectancy created by the general thoughts. These radical methods have already put people in jeopardies. This essay will discuss how the pressure, which experienced by the public, exerted by the
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People are often persuaded by this kind of value for the reason that the cultural phenomena are the collection of their ideal. According to researches collected by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the media portray images of slim beauty affect the adolescent and women who concern thinness most. Moreover under consistent exposure to those images will weaken their body-related self-esteem (Treasure, Wack, & Roberts, 2008). The public is obsessed with the cultural phenomena brought through the media. With the help of the media industries, doctoring the cover of fashion magazines, which implies the more beautiful you become, the more self-esteem you get. Besides, following the cultural phenomena is associated with being popular. Peer pressure is created as everyone want to be the trendiest one. Consequently, they will start trying to on-diet and develop anorexia
In conclusion, media consumption plays a imperative role in the consumer consumption, especially in teenagers. Often we are bombarded with negative propaganda and negative messages that can lead to hating our self-image and lowering our self- confidence. It is alright and healthy to look like a woman, curves. It is not healthy to look emaciated and malnourished. Beauty is not about how many ribs you can see, or how bony your legs are.
Technology used or abused? Imagine a world run by technology. This world will be a dream until the reality hits. Technology isn’t what people perceive it to be, it’s dangerous. Scott Westerfeld, Uglies, Science fiction novel.
Plastic surgery is the rigorous medical process of altering the human body through means of reconstruction, the removal of tissue, and the addition of tissue for cosmetic purposes. People see it every day and do not even question it. People’s faces and bodies are augmented in ways that humanity sees so regularly that viewers have become blind to it. Seeing faces and bodies perfectly sculpted by knives for sharp cheekbones, fuller lips, larger breasts, and a slimmer waist has tricked society into forgetting what the average person actually looks like. Consumers have become so blind to this constant fake image that humanity does not notice the difference until an unaltered, natural image is forced down our throats.
In today’s modern culture, almost all forms of popular media play a significant role in bombarding young people, particularly young females, with what happens to be society’s idea of the “ideal body”. This ideal is displayed all throughout different media platforms such as magazine adds, television and social media – the idea of feminine beauty being strictly a flawless thin model. The images the media displays send a distinct message that in order to be beautiful you must look a certain way. This ideal creates and puts pressure on the young female population viewing these images to attempt and be obsessed with obtaining this “ideal body”. In the process of doing so this unrealistic image causes body dissatisfaction, lack of self-confidence
This constant fixation on physical perfection has created unreasonable beauty standards for women, ones we cannot possibly achieve on our own. Such standards permeate all forms of popular media, particularly fashion magazines and advertisements. Women are bombarded with the notion that we must be thin in order to be desirable. These images project an
The media portrays these unrealistic standards to men and women of how women should look, which suggests that their natural face is not good enough. Unrealistic standards for beauty created by the media is detrimental to girls’ self-esteem because it makes women feel constant external pressure to achieve the “ideal look”, which indicates that their natural appearance is inadequate. There has been an increasing number of women that are dissatisfied with themselves due to constant external pressure to look perfect. YWCA’s “Beauty at Any Cost” discusses this in their article saying that, “The pressure to achieve unrealistic physical beauty is an undercurrent in the lives of virtually all women in the United States, and its steady drumbeat is wreaking havoc on women in ways that far exceed the bounds of their physical selves” (YWCA).
If this scenario is viewed in isolation it will be a personal problem but if it is viewed under the microscope of social imagination it will reveal that due to society’s high standards and obsession with beauty has effected number of people in society. In a nutshell Social imagination is being able to distinguish personal problems
According to Britton (2012), last 2008, YWCA USA developed a report Beauty at Any Cost wherein they discuss the consequences of beauty obsession of every woman in America. It shows that beauty obsession results from a decrease in the level of self-esteem. It also gives a problem to the Americans because it’s also putting a dent in their pockets. It states that because of those cosmetics many people have decreased the level of self-esteem because of those cosmetics.
Countless advertisements feature thin, beautiful women as either over-sexualized objects, or as subordinates to their male counterparts. The mold created by society and advertisers for women to fit into is not entirely attainable. More often than not, models are Photoshopped and altered to the point that they don’t even resemble themselves. W. Charisse Goodman suggests, “The mass media do not
From an early age, we are exposed to the western culture of the “thin-ideal” and that looks matter (Shapiro 9). Images on modern television spend countless hours telling us to lose weight, be thin and beautiful. Often, television portrays the thin women as successful and powerful whereas the overweight characters are portrayed as “lazy” and the one with no friends (“The Media”). Furthermore, most images we see on the media are heavily edited and airbrushed
Also, cosmetic procedures have increased by 39% over the past five years (from 2011) with surgical procedures up 17% and nonsurgical procedures up 44%(ASPS statistics). It shows that young women are willing to put themselves in danger because they feel the need to meet society's expectations of beauty. When going into cosmetic surgery, there is a risk of death or side effects that people are aware of, but still undergo the procedure. All because we live in a world where first impressions are made by how we look and thanks to magazines advertisements they set the “ideal” look for us and we all try to reach that look no matter how it
I suppose when i used to think of cultural identity, i perceive it as what racial background we come from, what race we are. Whether it’s Mexican, Asian, French, etc… I assumed it meant what special foods we eat, and events or activities we participate in according to our background. Little did i know this is a misconception; quite a common one actually. Cultural identity is actually how you live your life and how you express yourself, the things you enjoy that make you, you. I am someone who enjoys many things, ranging from A-Z.
Credibility Statement: I use to tell myself this when I was in high school, after looking at a music video or reading a magazine. Seeing women who were 100 pounds with zero body fat made me look at myself differently. Reveal Topic/Thesis: In today's society, the media plays a part in how we perceive our body. The way the media's advertisements portray body images rarely resemble our own, but what they consider beauty.
Subculture is significant factor of urban setting. It related to urban culture, or rural culture, or the culture within middle class. The concept of the subculture means sub-division of a regional culture, subculture is combination of social situation between difference classes, personal background, religion and metropolitan, but its combination manner will impact on the participating individual. Green had make the clear point about ‘highly organized subcultures’ with the question: ‘since in the new generation no individual participates in exact cultural complex totally but fundamentally in series of residence groups according to sex, age class, carrier, nation, religion and race all somewhat differing norms and prospect of behavior –how do they organize in many difference ways to build varying background for individual reason of psychoneurotic trends?’ [Green 1946: 354]
1.0 Introduction 1.1 Background of the Issue This report is written to find out the pros and cons of cosmetic surgery to people as well as how much cosmetic surgery has benefited people both positively and negatively. Cosmetic surgery procedures have been performed back in the early 1800s, which means it has been in existence for centuries as what history has suggested. Besides that, the development of cosmetic surgery states that it started to gain popularity since the 1970s and 1980s. Cosmetic surgery can be defined as the operative procedure as improvement of appearance is the principal purpose (Medical Dictionary for the Dental Professions, 2012).