December 2-Campbell

I found Markula’s (2001) article to be so relevant to a few things that are happening in our society today. The article discussed how a women’s body image is socially constructed through fitness magazines. I would argue that not only is femininity constructed in fitness magazines, but rather in almost all forms of media. Photoshop has become the most used medium in advertising and modeling. The ideals that women are held up to are not the norm for everyday people that we see on the street. Mainly because the people that are being shown in the media are being altered to look perfect or unblemished.

I think when companies use programs such as Photoshop it creates problems for people. They are trying to live up to these ideal standards of beauty and they feel that they are never going to attain that level of perfection. So we see people crash diet or develop eating disordered behavior. People try so hard to achieve what they see in magazines and TV that they lose sight of what having a healthy body looks like. There are several new ads that promote the fact that they do not use Photoshop. While I think these are great I think they need to develop some variety in the models they select. Not every female in America is a size 0. I am not saying that we should have obese models, but I think having varying sizes could help to buffer the body image issues within our society. What also would help is not labeling sizes “plus size.” Most recently Calvin Klein posted a photo of a plus size model, the backlash sparked a debate because the woman appeared to be of a very average size. When people hear the word “plus” they assume large, fat, overweight etc. If we are labeling normal people sizes as “plus” in advertisements the message being sent to society is that small is normal and normal is fat. When in reality this is not always the case.

While this article discussed women’s body image issues I think it is also important to note that men also face a socially constructed idea of how to look. Men in magazines all look like Hercules, but we know that the majority of men do not have bodies like Hercules. Our society also does not talk about how men’s body image is constructed. We only ever really discuss how women are affected by magazine ads. Barbie has always been a hot topic for the construction of femininity in our culture. It could be argued that GI Joe is the same for men. They are told to be big and muscular and if they are not then they are not manly enough. Body image, as a whole, is skewed for both men and women in our society and we not only see it in magazines but also in the media and even children toys.