Women, Magazines, and the Creation of Reality

Question 1

Theme #1: The Still Photograph Constructs Meaning

Women and Magazines

Some women feel that beauty and fashion magazines are the devil. They fill peoples minds with a false reality. Though they claim to be helping women by being what Blyth refers to as "aspirational dream books", they do quite the opposite (301). This essay will discuss the false ideals that magazine ads create and women's need to pursue them. The creators of the ads use the ideals that Western society has create as a whole. The ads work in two ways. They either create a fear in the consumers' minds and make them believe they can only find salvation in their products, or they make the product, and/or the model using the product, seem desirable. The desires that are associated to the product are not inherent, yet they become assumed in our society.

It can be very detrimental for a woman, or teenager, to look through the pages of a beauty magazine. Readers can't help but compare themselves to the woman with beautiful hair, even skin tone, plump lips, and impeccable bone structure who taunts from the two-dimensional page. The characteristics just mentioned, among others, that make up the ideal woman are what Barthes refers to as myths. He claims that the "contemporary concept of beauty and thinness naturalize certain cultural norms of appearance and being universal," (Cartwright and Sturken 20).

The six ads used are all selling products: 1) John Frieda shampoos and conditioners for brunettes; 2) CoverGirl makeup; 3) Ralph Lauren Romance perfume for men and women; 4) Bebe clothing; 5) Maybelline foundation; and 6) Skyy Sport Low Carb beverage. These ads were taken from the June 2004 edition of Cosmopolitan. All the ads have youthful, Caucasian women, who are posed in way that suggest sexuality. Ad 1, 2, 4 and 5 have their models photographed with their mouths slightly opened, which Betterton claims it's to be read as sexually invitational (197). The models are not addressing the reader directly, but want the reader to believe she can enhance her sex appeal by using their product. The model of ad 2 for CoverGirl, is the only one who has her eyes closed and teeth together, to swirl the line between innocence and experience. Perhaps it is because their product is targeted towards a younger audience. Ads 3 and 6 are in no way denying their usages of sexuality to sell their products. The perfume ad has a very young girl, scantily clad, with a young man who has the typical, Western traits of male beauty (strong arms, back, chest, and jaw) and who is even more scantily clad. The beverage ad, which makes no mention if it is alcoholic or not, has a blond, curvy model in a white bathing suit, that leaves very little to the imagination. The two ads are more suggestive because they show more flesh then the other four. Ad 4 receives a honourable mention because its model is more suggestively posed, however the lighting aids in concealing anything too explicit.

It should also be stated that all the models look very thin. The two cosmetic ads use models that look to be a more 'normal' size, however that term is used loosely. Neither ones body is being displayed, but judging by their angular jaws and cheekbones these models are slim. "The average female model weighs 23 percent less than a normal woman," and yet women continuously strive for these unrealistic goals (Payne 166). It is virtually impossible to look as good as the women shown in magazines, no matter what product one buys or plastic surgery has done. Sadly, even the most