Petracca And Sorapure: The Role Of Popular Culture
702 Words3 Pages
Hunter Crawford
Prof. McDonald
ENG 107D
25 September 2015 The Role of Popular Culture
Are the commonly held beliefs about beauty and success in American society reliant upon what is portrayed to us a by the mass media? In the short excerpt “Why Study Popular Culture” Petracca and Sorapure make the claim that “We see reflected in pop culture certain standards and commonly held beliefs about beauty, success, love, or justice”. For this claim, I have no objection. I agree that popular culture reflects the commonly held beliefs of American society. However, who is doing the reflecting is another question. The commonly held beliefs in which many of us share are ones that I believe are not our own. These values in which Petracca and Sorapure claim…show more content… When trying to pinpoint an exact idea of what beauty is and what it 's not, is no easy task. For this is a concept that is purely subjective. However we can, for instance, recognize beauty as a form that is portrayed in popular culture. When we see our favorite stars on TV and in movies we recognize many of these people as beautiful. For instance take Jennifer Lopez an actress, fashion designer, author, producer, dancer, and singer, she is often referred to as one of the world 's most beautiful women. When we look at her pop culture and society tells us that she is beautiful. What qualities does she possess that makes her represent beauty? Is it her talent or the way she just naturally looks? I believe that these are important pieces of the puzzle, but I think the most significant link between her and beauty is her marketability. You can notice this in any superstar that we idolize. We as a society recognize her as beautiful because pop culture tells us…show more content… The media molds our opinions of beauty every day from ads featuring photoshopped models that have all been fixed to represent someone 's idea of perfection. Popular culture is molded off of what 's popular or what 's considered cool by the majority in society at a given time. So if you had the power to instantly make something cool or trendy you could create your own target market in which to sell to. The mass media has this power through advertisements and the beauty market is just one of the many I believe to be greatly impacted by it. When searching for the word beauty on Google the top results feature makeup companies and sites to buy products to try and make you look and feel like the unrealistic conceptualization of beauty you see in