December 2: Women's Body Image in Fitness Magazines (Yannick)

In “Beyond the Perfect Body: Women’s Body Image Distortion in Fitness Magazine Discourse,” author Pirkko Markula makes great points about the construction of femininity in relation to women’s body image as well as the perception and framing of women’s health in and through fitness magazines. First of all, Markula (2001) points out accurately that “obtaining the look of the perfect media models is beyond the reach of ordinary women” (p. 163). Most of the images of women (and men!) we are exposed to in our daily lives have been heavily altered through technology such as Photoshop. The following video titled “Dove: Evolution” perfectly shows how unrealistic the images of supposedly ideal bodies truly are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U . The woman shown in the final advertisement in this clip does not look like the model used for the shooting at all. This shows how much retouching is done to models; this, of course, is highly problematic, as it creates an ideal that is not obtainable for normal women.
 

Secondly, I really like Markula’s analysis of the contradictory nature of fitness magazines when it comes to the construction of women’s attitudes towards their bodies. Markula (2001) states that while the fitness magazines in her analysis appreciate women’s intellectual abilities and devalue the “emphasis on the perfect but unachievable body” (p. 165), the content of those magazines often contradicts this reader-friendly idea (p. 165). Rather, the fitness magazines’ content “equate a normal female body to a model’s body. In their world, any other type of body is nonexistent, or if shown, appears unappealing. [...] Thus, the normal woman was depicted not only as different, but as ugly, discontent, inadequate, unattractive, and dull” (Markula, 2001, p. 165).

Finally, I completely agree with Markula’s (2001) assessment -- based on her observations described above -- of gender as “harnessed to serve commercialism [in today’s culture]” (p. 167). Nowadays, companies and media institutions oftentimes try to sell their products and programs as artifacts that enhance or ensure a consumer’s femininity or masculinity. These products are strategically portrayed as a means to make their consumers more masculine or feminine. Oftentimes companies rely on the idea that if consumers are insecure about their femininity/masculinity, they will be more willing to buy and consume a product that will rid them (and, more importantly, others) of any doubts they may have about their feminine or masculine capital. I am very concerned about these messages that are being sent to the masses, especially to young audience who might not be as media-literate as we are.