While touching on contemporary issues in class, one of the lectures touched on the obsession of physical beauty in the Latin American community. This obsession is very prevalent in the media that everyday people consume.
As Dr. Acosta was giving us her personal anecdotes I found myself nodding my head in agreement and thinking of all the similar instances where I have experienced a similar situation. Growing up I always heard things about my body. "You're so skinny eat some ice cream." "You're starting to gain weight." "Don't slouch or you'll be hunchbacked and ugly." These were all things that were constantly being said to me by my family. I was never hurt by these comments as I always knew that it was never with malicious intent. It's just the culture.
During the lecture, I made the connection that TV and media are what is instilling this perfect beauty ideology. TV actors and actresses are these people with perfect faces and bodies. In addition to them being physically perfect, they are often objectified with beauty being their only personality/characteristic.
Consumers eat up this idea and want to mirror that onto themselves. They also want the perfect body and the perfect face so they get the surgeries and procedures to achieve that. This becomes the norm and that leads to aunts and grandmas telling the 8-year-old to eat some ice cream to put on some weight.
I never realized how toxic this behavior and ideology could be until I saw the same things being said to my little sister and realized this isn't right. TV and media should work towards a more inclusive and less beautified culture that focuses less on the superficial aspects of a person.
Me estoy de acuerdo. Personalmente, pienso que las programas de "Keeping Up With the Kardashians", el desfile de moda de Victoria's Secret, "The Bachelor", y "America's Next Top Model" muestran valores irrazonable de la belleza. ¿Cómo cambia esta problema en las programas?
ReplyDeleteEs loca cómo nos estamos dando cuenta de la conexión entre estas dos ideas, pero estoy completamente de acuerdo. Al crecer, nunca entendí por qué debería querer seguir estos falsos ejemplos de "perfección". Sin embargo, sabía que, según lo que dijo mi madre, no debería querer parecerme como lo hice naturalmente. La presión tóxica para tener belleza significa que una definición polarizante(no sé si usa esta palabra correctamente) se ha transmitido a través de las inseguridades por generaciones. Quizás veamos que los medios comienzan a cambiar para cuando tengamos hijos.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the media for this reason can be so toxic. People look up to these role models who can be, or at least portray themselves to be, so shallow and inconsiderate individuals. I really believe that if people stepped back, and really looked at who they were looking up to and understood that these are not actions of a healthy person, they could find better role models and leave a toxic, image obsessed, environment.
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