The Media and Body
Image
Maggie Wykes and Barrie
Gunter, The Media and Body
Image. London: Sage, 2005.
The Media and Self-esteem
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The question of self-esteem: „The ’body image’ construct tends to
comprise a mixture of self-perceptions, ideas and feelings about
one’s physical attributes. It is linked to self-esteem and to the
individual’s emotional stability” . The media disseminates
„desirable”, „normal”, „acceptable looks” – making ordinary people
feel „deviant” .
Danger: seeing the media as solely responsible for this:
“Blaming the media for reproducing and extolling of unrealistic
female bodies that influence young women to starve themselves has
almost become a popular truism. Just as the mass media have been
frequently accused of causing perceived increases in sexual and
violent crime so they are now subject to a barrage of criticism for
persuading young girls that thin is beautiful”. What do you think? To
what extent is the media responsible for this situation?
Recently: projects funded by the European Commission to
encourage dialogue between policy makers, service providers, and
education specialists (who are, naturally, critical of the media)
Gender
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Mainly women are targeted, but both genders are
concerned: “While research has shown that women
tend to regard themselves as bigger than they really
are, for men the opposite is true. Men tend to
perceive themselves as underweight and as thinner
than they actually are and report a desire to be
larger”.
Most serious issue women face: anorexia nervosa.
Other issues: cosmetic surgery, over-exercise, selfmutilation (The Black Swan)
Main questions:
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How the images disseminated by the media
impact the life choices of young women. Can
you think of an example?
Who benefit from such discourses of
femininity. What do you think?
The media does more than promote
slenderness; these images often disguise a
whole range of gender norms. What kind of
norms?
The Self-image of Women
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How women see themselves: John Berger: „A
woman must continuously watch herself. From
earliest childhood she has been taught and
persuaded to survey herself continually” (1972). –
women see themselves through men’s eyes; she is
not her own master. I.e., lacks subjectivity: „Woman
has been represented as ‘other’ than man, but also
represented by man for man and represented for
herself through his eyes”.; „the object of male gaze”
What is left, then? Do you agree with this view?
Ways of Seeing
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How we look at an image: To be
meaningful, the image must be looked at
from a subject position that is enabled by the
discourses offered be the image. – i.e., our
perception/interpretation is conditioned
Women seen/represented in
painting
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Renaissance: sensual, nude
18th century: decorous, maternal
Victorianism: myth or whore
Picasso: nude
Turn of the 20th century: women were still
represented in high art forms according to the
interests of patriarchy + now became
represented in popular art according to the
interest of capital
Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of
Venus, 1486
Thomas Gainsborough, Mary,
Countess Howe, 1763-4.
Joshua Reynolds, George Clive and his
Family with an Indian Servant Girl, 1765
Pable Picasso, Nude, Green
Leaves and Bust, 1932.
Late 19th Century/Turn of the
20th Century
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Commodification, mass circulation of magazines, changes in
technology (journalism was less expensive), search for new
markets
1880s: women’s magazines were popular, sometimes solely
depended on ads for profitability
Consumerism: by 1914 women became the major consumers in
the UK and US – another role attributed to them: consumers.
Women had the right to vote and also the right to buy – in what
sense does this standpoint go against the widely accepted claim
that by the beginning of the 20th century (the time of the first
wave of feminism) women became more empowered?
The 20th Century
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The film industry in the 20th century: growth
of star culture
Roles for women: housekeeper, mother,
screen siren; women were given an identity
by ads and were told they were not good
enough „naturally”.Schizoid situation: the
identities offered by these images are partial
and may be contradicted by other
representations! E.g. Screen siren vs.
housewife. Why is this a serious problem?
The 20th Century
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Second wave feminism in the 1960s: charged
consumerism with the role of constructing
conservative identities for women; +
appearance of openly sexist ads
1970s-1980s: the academia makes its voice
heard; increasingly critical of these
representations: media representations are
not truthful reflections of real lives, but
symbolic accounts of what is valued and
approved of that which appears to be fact.
21st Century Consumer
Culture
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Publicity images offered women to buy a desirable
self, just as art showed them a male view of
themselves in the previous centuries
Who benefits from women’s compliance: the answer
is simple: patriarchy and capital; capital is, however,
responsible for both women’s and men’s exploitation
Women learn to reconstruct themselves; beauty is
the goal, science is the means; with the help of:
fasion, exercise, diet, rejuvenation, chemical
maintenance.
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How to get out? Liz Jones resigning as editor
of Marie-Claire: „I had simply had enough of
working in an industry that pretends to
support women while it bombards them with
impossible images of perfection day after
day, undermining their self-confidence, their
health, and their hardly earned cash” – also
related to the question of life coices; what job
to choose if you do not want to support that
industry?
Meaning Construction
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Haraway: non-innocent
Stuart Hall, „Encoding, Decoding”: more dominant
social groups have more power over meaning
construction
i.e., not just gender, but meaning is also socially
constructed
Language is both a vital part of how we interact with
others and the means by which we know ourselves
and our world; the mass media, with their repetitive
and familiar „languages” produce this knowledge