Examining the Ideal of Beauty in Print Advertising
Examining the Ideal of Beauty in Print Advertising
“Yes! Wow! I can be better starting right from this minute! Look at her! Look at her! But right afterward, I feel like throwing out all of my clothes and everything in my refrigerator and telling my boyfriend never to call me again and blowtorching my whole life” (Wolf 62). Sound familiar? This was just one young woman’s reaction after experiencing a beauty magazine. So, what prompts young women to buy these magazines if the net worth ends up falling on the not so promising side? Well where else is a woman going to find the latest new product or technique for improving her image then from the very source that created her feelings of inadequacy! When examining the factors that contribute to a culturally ideological view of female beauty, it is not difficult to place blame on advertising companies. To obtain a better understanding of this, one must not only look at the model or celebrity endorsing or representing a particular product, but also take into consideration all of the different components that complete this socially unrealistic standard. These components all play a role in designing the notions to which our culture presides. By creating a manufactured image to represent a cultural idea, print advertisements featured in beauty magazines greatly contribute to a fabricated myth of beauty—producing an extremely negative impact on American women.
Take a closer look…hence, “beauty” magazine (as if it were only so simple to buy a magazine that would ensure beauty). Unfortunately, women fail to recognize and accept the unrealistic ideals that they are convinced of over and over again. Not very often do women see a magazine on a rack and consider the process taken to create such eye-candy. These are manufactured images! Who wouldn’t look good in a photograph after being captured at the right angle in the right light with the perfect background, only then to be retouched and shaped up with a little airbrushing here and there? Dalma Heyn, editor of two women’s magazines, confirms: “that airbrushing age from a woman’s face is routine” (Wolf 82). An author agrees stating that, “Computer imaging—the controversial new technology that tampers with photographic reality—has been used for years in women’s magazines” (83). How funny it...