Real Women by Women Portrayed on TV - Research Paper Example

 It is obvious that the effect media has on American values can’t be considered positive. Now the detrimental effect television has on real women represents the relevant issue. By demonstrating bright, courage, rich and independent females, whose primary goal is be better than men in every respect, media makes real women feel diffident. The given paper will discuss the effects TV has on real women and define the recommendations on how TV images really should be treated not to affect real women negatively. Detrimental effects to real women by women portrayed on TV Introduction Every day women look at us from the screens of the TV sets. These women are to serve as an example of how a female should look and behave; they radiate magnetism that can generate all imaginable and unimaginable feelings and thoughts. Nevertheless, the arguments behind this suggestion are not unmistakable. It is essential to understand the line between the TV world and the real life, between natural and virtual. It is not infrequent that many women feel themselves imperfect and unworthy in comparison to their TV counterparts (Doane, 1991). A woman who regularly judges herself against the females from TV usually becomes not very self-assured. The images created and shown on TV decrease women’s self-esteem as they do reflect the ideas of feminism women have been struggling for for many years. And it is a well- known fact, that self-respect guarantees proper attitude of other people and consequently, self-assurance, approval, and finally, the impression a women makes. TV shows talk about and show women different from those we meet in the real life. Surely, it would be more beneficial for female population to look for other samples for assessment (Hyde, 2005). The TV and real life discrepancy Men and women have very different self-appraisal and the attitudes towards each other are formed through years. These attitudes and stereotypes are formed inside of our souls by what we see and hear around. As we watch TV every day, many of our stereotypes are formed with the help of it. Women were struggling for their rights and self-respect for ages however, sometimes there is an impression that these efforts are not taken into account. Almost every ad contains something offensive for the representatives of fair sex, because what they see on TV can’t even be compared with what they see in everyday life (Juhasz, 2001). Modern famous serials like Sex and the City make women think about their lives. Here we can see four women, free and successful who does not need any marriage or children and just have fun enjoying life. Such life is not natural for the real woman and such movies make married women think that they are loosing something important in their life spending their time with husband and children (Stamp, 2000). Successful rich ladies like Cristina Aguilera or Jennifer Lopes became an unachievable ideal for the real women. Real women become devalued. They start living in their dreams, which finally turn into envy and irritation. Some women give themselves up to despair and start cry over the passing life and the lost or non-existent opportunities. The question is serious because some women even commit crimes in order to improve their life. …women, as they have been represented by men in these texts, take on images that have an “eternal” status, and are repeated through the decades in their essentials: the representation changes superficially in accord with current styles and fashions – but scratch the surface and one finds a familiar pattern (Kaplan, p.2). The danger of weight lose problem       The weight standard brought by 90th makes a lot of women and young girls take serious efforts to correspond. The TV and magazines’ images told real women that in order to be considered beautiful they must have parameters of 90-60-90. Every woman who did not have such parameters – and it is more than 80%! – automatically became unwanted. People are inclined to create their problems themselves. The problem of excess weight is also artificially created. It is a well-known fact that famous beauties of the past Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bordo never were very thin and they are still considered to be symbols of beauty. Now it seems that people forgot that fact. The most unpleasant fact was that not only women were sure about it, but also men compared their women with these parameters and were directed by these stereotypes choosing girlfriend or wife. This was very offensive for women but they could not influence the situation and it aggravated. Now the problem of weight is one of the most serious. Women demonstrated on TV are usually slim and this makes real women try to reach standards. Here is one of the articles found in the British press: “The British Government fights against… slim women. 6 million of English women at the age of 16 to 35 consciously stop eating and are starving, irreversibly damaging their health”. The most upsetting is that in some cases these efforts were finished with death of the woman who tried to become slim. After such tragic cases the advertisers were asked to change slim women in some of their ads with more stout ones. It is horrible that only death of fair sex representatives made people think about the standards they set (Peril, 2002). Women showed on TV are usually slim and beautiful. That makes men perceive females predominantly as erotic objects. When a woman is showed on TV the accent is usually made on her physique, not on other abilities a person may have. …the male gaze, in defining and dominating woman as erotic object, manages to repress the relations of woman in her place as Mother – leaving a gap not “colonized” by man, through which, hopefully, woman can begin to create a discourse, a voice, a place for herself as a subject (Kaplan, p.2). It seems that the freedom gained by women makes them erotic objects, nothing else. Television demonstrates slim “independent” women, making real beautiful, intelligent females, good mothers and wives, upset. The differences in men’s and women’s perception As it was already mentioned, men and women have very different self-appraisal. It is interesting that in comparison to women, most of the men consider themselves to be worthy, nice and beautiful. They almost do not care about their weight, height and clothes and do not pay much attention to their TV counterparts. They do not take much effort to improve themselves in order to win the women’s attention. Most of them just live and enjoy their life in contrast to women who worry about every aspect of their life that varies from what they see on TV. At the same time men are inclined to compare their women with what they see. It is once again very offensive for the representatives of fair sex. It is necessary women should not adjust themselves to any standards but make their men accept them as they are. Self-esteem is essential for every person, it is important to remember that (Smelik, 2001). Conclusion and recommendations  It is obvious that the effect media has on American values is not positive. The detrimental effect television became relevant issue. By demonstrating bright, courage, rich and independent females, whose primary goal is be better than men in every respect, media makes real women feel diffident. It is important to understand that the images of females we see on TV every day have very little in common with real women. Physique represents the most important evaluation criterion, virtue is forgotten, and provoking clothes to cap it all make these creatures look like a dolls from a shop. Such representation has a detrimental effect on the women worldwide and has already resulted in mental disorders (Media portrayals of girls and women). It is necessary women should not adjust themselves to some standards but make their men accept them as they are. Self-esteem is essential for every person and it is very important to remember that. Modern women obtain the goals to make a big money and become better than men in every respect. The traditional role of women becomes not very prestigious. However, not all the women become influenced by TV, some women still resist and it is them who actually are real women and should be treated as an example instead of TV images. However, our times have demonstrated the affirmative move away from the imposed stereotypes. The positive side of such move is that every representative of fair sex may and should consider herself to be successful, beautiful and the best without adjusting to any imposed standards. It is also necessary to understand that women on TV should not serve as samples. In order to realize this it is necessary to turn to literature, historical records, which can tell us about hundreds of outstanding, beautiful and intelligent women. It is obvious, that time brings serious re-evaluation of the stereotypes and their alteration, which should finally bring benefits to the society.  References Anonymous. (2009). Media portrayals of girls and women. Retrieved from http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/. Doane, M. (1991). Femmes fatales: Feminism, film theory, psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge. Hyde, J. (2005). The gender similarities hypothesis. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp606581.pdf. Juhasz, A. (2001). Women of vision: Histories in feminist film and video. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Kaplan, E. (1990). Women and film: Both sides of the camera. New York: Routledge. Peril, L. (2002). Pink think. New York: Norton & Company, Incorporated. Smelik, A. (2001). And the mirror cracked. Los Angeles: Palgrave Macmillan. Stamp, S. (2000). Movie-struck girls: Women and motion picture culture after the nickelodeon. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 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