Toned, tanned arms, muscular legs, high cheekbones, chiseled jaw, flawless skin, a flat stomach and impeccably straight white teeth: this is my perception of how a beautiful human would look. My skewed concept of beauty sickens me. The media has indented this image of perfection into my head.
The media has stressed to us that this image is the correct way to look. It tells society the only way to reach success, fame and true love is by living up to this form of perfection. Concerning fame, it is constantly thrown at us that it cannot be reached unless you look the part. You see it all the time; the celebrities people idolize always fit into this idea. Half the reason most people swoon over Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom isn't because of their acting abilities, but because of the way they look.
Concerning how to find true love, the media has sunk into our minds that we also have to measure up to a notion of beauty in order to obtain it. If you look at ads in magazines, the women, who are edited photographically to have the right amount of curves, large glossy pink lips and an ideal six pack, have the men chasing after them and obsessively craving them. In the media's perfect world, who would ever hear of someone falling in love with a fat person? This idea doesn't make sense because our generation has always had the media telling us what is right (being skinny) and what is wrong (having any form of fat on our bodies.)
The media tells us success is partly reached through fitting into this form of perfection. This definitely applies to every single one of us going to Ball State University. We go to college so that we can be educated, obtain a substantial job and be successful in our fields. Suddenly the media is preaching to us that if we really want this to happen, we have to look the right way.
The media is emphasizing the wrong things to society. We, as students, need to focus on our schoolwork, not on the way we look. Instead, everyone is obsessing over fitting into this image of perfection. Most of us go through a phase of self-image issues, which in the end leaves us feeling bad about the way we look. If the media didn't focus so much on looking perfect, our depression probably wouldn't be as high from trying to measure up to these standards. And society is obsessing over this idea of trying to look "perfect." How many times have I picked up a magazine that read "the secret to losing weight" or "top 10 ways to get a six pack?" Never in my life have I seen a magazine that had the secret to getting good grades in college - what the media should be focusing on.
Students have this misconception that our generation is screwed and that there is no way to get this image out of our heads. Let me ask you this: How many of us are going to school for journalism, creative writing, telecommunications, public relations, theatre, communications or film? These areas all affect the media. We could change this image. We really could. This image wasn't always this way: Back in the day, women used to be idolized for having curves. Even earlier in history, when women had to work laboriously on farms, men wanted a woman who had "meat on her bones" so she could have enough energy and strength to do the work and raise children. The point is that the image has been changed and could be changed again.
Something needs to be changed in the media. It isn't going to happen fast, but something needs to happen.
Write to Meira at mabienstock@bsu.edu
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