Essay :)

This idea that women need to be slim to be beautiful and healthy is constantly being feed to us by media. Also the media tells us that women are sexy and that you can only be sexy by being skinny.  When you think of healthy women, most people think of small legs, bum, arms, flat stomach and white skin. Because of the media everyone thinks the same. We are constantly being thrown pictures of the same type of woman and being told that this is what healthy is , if you don’t look like this then you’re not sexy , not healthy , not fit , not beautiful.  This is impacting society and what women think about themselves. In reality a healthy women is the complete opposite of what the media think but not everyone sees that and women and young girls still think they need to change their bodies to be what the media wants us to be. There are so many issues with the representations of women in the media like young girls being encouraged to be extremely thin because all their favourite celebrities look like that. Girls are always being told that they should change their appearance which makes them constantly worry about how they look when they are growing up. Many girls turn to eating disorders to follow the media and be what the media wants which is to be slim. Also being slim and healthy in the media’s eye is also being a sex symbol, in the media women are suppose to be healthy ,soft , loving , caring and sexy. “Women have a right to be equal to males and stand up for themselves. Women can do anything that men can do. Women aren’t just sex symbols. Women have their own power. “That quote is from a documentary film called Miss Representations, which talks about all these issues about how women are represented in the media and the media just sees women as sex symbols. All we read about is how women should be slim and healthy too look good for males, that’s all the media says about women. This representation of women in the media affects society’s perception of women by saying that it’s normal for all women to by sex symbols and that they have to be skinny and beautiful to be a sex symbol. “The media is the message and the messenger “ Media can influence women to do anything and be anything it wants. It’s so powerful, we are always being told what women should be like and its shaping our brains. Women that are healthy are being stereotyped too, so it goes both ways. If you’re not healthy you should follow the media’s rules on how to be, and If you are healthy the media still finds ways to tell women they are still not good enough. Those messages are being shoved at us 24/7. That all women are good for ,is their appearance. It’s not always in a nice way either; the media can get so nasty towards women. Which can influence males thoughts about how women should dress , act and look like. If you asked most women about what they think healthy is a lot of them would say the same because of media’s representations.  Most beauty these days isn’t even real, it’s all created on the computer, so no one could ever look like that anyway which is even more dangerous cause it’s pushing women to go further into getting the perfect look that’s not real. All the media does is to try and create the prefect women so that all other women are bombarded with messages, values and representations of what they should be like , even though in reality no women is perfect. 

Advertisment Analysis

This ad was found in Oxygen magazine. It’s a two page advertisement and it’s selling Hydrocut Max Appetite suppression pills. The dominant part of the ad , it’s the A4 image of a woman in a gold bikini with what women see as the perfect body. Real Weight Loss for Real Results is stuck right at the top of the opposite page in really big letter so it catches your attention , ‘real’ is used twice to get the message across that they are real pills and they do work. This ad makes a stereotype for women that if you are loosing weight that you have to use diet pills, when in reality the diet pills don’t actually work. There is also another image of the actual product placed of the right hand side. The rule of thirds is used and it works well because your attention is balanced over the whole page but if you look right down at the bottom there are some important information that women should actually know before buying the product. One being that the model in the ad didn’t actually use the product. So its false advertising. You won’t look like the model by taking the pills, you won’t ever look like the model period because the imaged is photoshopped. So the ad represents Kiwi women as weight loss obsessed and wanting to have the perfect body. This is a bad image for women because that’s what everyone will expect from them, to look good and be young and slim. This ad is suppose to make you want to buy the product and get results just like the model did. The advertisers try to make women feel bad about themselves and then look at the model in the advertisement and buy their product and change how they look.  

                                                                      

Magazine Cover analysis

This is a cover for Dash magazine, a New Zealand health and fitness magazine for women.  The target audience for this cover would be about 20-45 year old women, and women just wanting to be fit and healthy.  The first thing you see would be the image which is probably the most dominant thing on the cover. The woman is wearing blue togs, doing a sexual pose, the attention seems to be on her stomach/waist, arms and breast, the body parts that women hate the most and want to change. The cover uses the rule of thirds with the image being in the centre making your attention go straight to it. The text is either side of the image and the title right on top in big font.  The cover headlines are in black and pink which makes them easy to read and stand out.  What women think about this cover is that they need to look like the image so to do so they need to do what the articles say. The main focus of the cover it about looking good on the beach “ At the beach 2010 , Are you ready for summer? “ followed by “ A flatter stomach in 4 weeks” this issue is all about helping you be fit , healthy , slim and look good on the beach. New Zealand woman are being represented as slim, fit and healthy while being on the beach. When in reality most Kiwi woman hate going to the beach because they believe that you have to look good on the beach because of what’s in the media.  Kiwi woman believe when you look good you feel good. Another title on the cover is “Super food! Tuna Treats” it’s also encoring woman to eat right and you will get your desired look for the beach. “Seven secrets of a slim woman” it’s again saying that woman NEED to be slim to be healthy.  Overall this magazine cover represents Kiwi woman as being obsessed with how they look and always need to eat right, exercise and stay slim.

New Zealand advertisment.

This is ad is comparing girls with beer and suggesting that women should be treated like beer.

Oxygen Magazine Cover.

women in the media.

images of health magazine covers

why do all health magazine covers have sexual images of woman? well they attract the attention of other woman because they want to look like the woman on the covers , which in reality they can't ever look like the women on the covers because the images are Photoshoped to make the woman look perfect.

Miss Representations movie tralier.