I was thinking about this question a while ago, as many of us would. It is a difficult question to answer.
Professor Laham provides a good insight into how gender stereotypes are created and perpetuated into ads that use gender-stereotyped images. In the beauty and cosmetics industry, advertisers have engaged in the objectification of women and have used sexually charged campaigns to promote beauty products. They have also tapped into our obsession with celebrities to sell their products.
The beauty industry manipulates consumers, preys on men and women’s insecurities and promotes the unattainable or what I like to call delusional beauty standards. The industry generates billions of dollars annually, more than the gross domestic product of many nations. The unrealistic pressures to look a certain way with the growth of social media, filters, and plastic surgery, has led people to scrutinize their appearance.
So why is this a problem?
And my answer to that is, people are their worst critics when it comes to their appearance. The concept of body image and the effect of advertising affects us psychologically. From repeated exposure to idealised images, we see every day on magazines, posters, social media influencers, celebrities, books and even films, it can lower our self-perceptions of attractiveness.
One of America’s biggest exports is its pop culture. The US media and entertainment industry is made up of all the businesses that produce and distribute movies, television programs, commercials, streaming content, music, and video games. These industries make, create, and distribute products and content unique to the American culture. Given this, corporate media is increasingly dominating the mass media, propagating “the image culture” and spreading Western ideals of beauty.
Snow White and narcissism?
Feminine beauty is a common theme that runs throughout several Grimm stories, often mixed with spectacular wickedness or unflawed purity. More specifically, characters who are beautiful and virtuous are frequently targeted by characters who are “evil looking” and diabolical. In the modern retelling of Snow White, one of Grimm’s classic, Snow White’s innate purity and beauty provokes her stepmother, the Evil Queen who is shown to be malignant and narcissistically invested in her physical appearance. The Evil Queen is obsessively preoccupied with unique beauty and seeks validation from her magic mirror by repeatedly asking it “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?” the mirror always replies, “You, my queen, are the fairest of all.”
Snow White’s beauty blossoms with each passing day until one day the magic mirror tells the Evil Queen she is no longer the fairest in the land declaring that little snow white is fairer than she is. Consumed with envy, the evil queen is determined to rid the land of Snow White and hatches a plan to kill her. (In the original retelling of Snow White, snow white is 7 years old. In the film they made her 14.) The plan backfires as we all know and the smug male mirror in Snow White’s story is an echo chamber, a simple message: that women are judged and valued on their physical appearance and allure. The male mirror may be viewed as a “judgemental voice, representing the absent father or patriarchy in general, which places a premium on beauty”.
Whether in fairy tales or in real life, the importance of physical appearance and the fulfilment of expected gender roles are indoctrinated into women and men from an early age. During the 60s, popular publications such as Mademoiselle, Teen and Young Miss helped to crystallize the identity formation of teenage girls.
The British style icon of the mid 60s was teen supermodel Twiggy. With her side swept pixie cut and willowy figure, young girls everywhere tried to copy her look and achieve her reed-thin physique. Twiggy reportedly lived off water, lettuce, and a single daily portion of steak. To follow Twiggy’s figure, meant ditching junk food, controlling food cravings, and turning off the hunger switch.
The coltish, thin ideal spilled over into the 1970s, when dieting was pursued with religious intensity. Many women sipped their way to skinniness by subsiding on diet drinks and sodas or tried one craze diet after the next. Others turned to quick fix weight loss drugs, such as “rainbow diet pills”. These brightly coloured pills were effective as they were addictive and even deadly.
Prior to the 1970s, few people talked about eating disorders until the shocking death of 1970s singing sensation Karen Carpenter due to complications related to her years-long struggle with anorexia heightened awareness of the dangers of eating disorders but did little to change women’s skinny obsession. What is more, women and girls were barraged with thin-ideal media images that portrayed thinness as a dominant view of beauty and equated slimness with success and happiness.
The Queen’s quest for lasting youth is part of the story’s larger exploration of how humans relate to the natural world. Efforts to remain forever young and violate the natural order of life itself. The pursuit of youth and beauty can swiftly spin out of control and lead us down a path to self-destruction.
We tend to like people who are like us, and in the case of celebrities, we tend to like those who personify characteristics that represent our ideal selves or self-concepts. If you see an ad featuring Brad Pitt for Chanel No5, the first male ever to officially endorse the brand, you may be captivated by the ad because you like Pitt, and he may be someone you admire or who rocks your world. Whether its Brad Pitt for №5, Kate Winslet for Lancôme, or Katy Perry for CoverGirl, one thing these celebrities all have in common is reference group appeal. Many people look up to celebrities and wish to emulate them which is just a fancy word for imitating. Celebrities exert this influence through their referent power.
In effect, celebrities set the bar high for those being influenced. So, if a person idolises the qualities of a particular celebrity, he or she attempts to copy the celebrity’s behaviour to be more like, or appear like, him or her. Emma Watson for Lancôme. Natalie Portman for Miss Dior Cherie. Zoe Saldana for L’Oréal Paris. Clive Owen for Bulgari Man Fragrance. These celebrity — product pairings work because of star power. Star power depends on the symbolic properties to the brand, thus matching the celebrity image with the brand image. Celebrity endorsement is expanding throughout several global markets. A 2015 study found that consumers have a desire to connect with celebrities and do this by buying personal care products endorsed by them.
Our Bodies, Our selves
How we think, evaluate, and perceive ourselves is an important part of our overall self-concept. The internal representation of our outer appearance, which reflects physical and perceptual dimensions, is known as body image.
Body image is closely tied to self-esteem. Marketers use marketing communications, especially advertising, to impact our self-esteem. For example, beauty ads that use thin-ideal media images can activate a process of advertising- induced social comparison in which viewers are driven to evaluate themselves in comparison with the people depicted in the images, which could lead to a negative effect.
Advertisers in general bear a large part of the responsibility for the deep feelings of inadequacy that drives women to psychiatrists, pills, or under the knife. They keep telling us over and over that if we could us that or have this or look like that, we would forever be desirable, and forever happy.
Just 4% of Americans said they had elective cosmetic surgery, and only 2% of them said they had non-invasive procedures like injectables, according to a 2016 research survey. Women were about 3 times as likely than men to say they underwent cosmetic surgery: this gender gap was witnessed across age groups. Finally, six in 10 Americans said that people are “too quick to undergo cosmetic procedures”, while fewer than a third said that cosmetic surgery “almost always” boosts people’s confidence and makes them feel better about themselves.
Aesthetics surgery makes profit from the ideology of a society that serves only vanity, youthfulness, and personal success, and one which is losing sight of the real values. The real value of a person cannot be reduced to his or her appearance. In cultures that worship youth and beauty, where aging is seen almost as a disease, cosmetic surgery can strip off the aging process as well as combat negative age stereotypes related to declines in physical fitness and appearance.
The beauty industry is in need of a makeover. For real change to occur and real measures to be taken, it is up to each one of us to reject those beauty brands that use advertising that devalues who we are, to sell us useless or potentially harmful products promoting unhealthy beauty standards.
Beauty brands should celebrate our individuality, embrace the beauty in diversity and speak to us honestly and authentically. True self-worth should not be measured by how closely we can approximate the ideal of human perfection. Rather, it should be determined by our character and integrity.
Sources Used:
Selling Perfection: DVC Business Professor Unmasks Beauty Industry’s Well-Kept Secrets
Made Up : How the Beauty Industry Manipulates Consumers (srilankaguardian.org)
