beauty in advertisements

Jean Kilbourne said that we see over 3000 advertisements each day. We are bombarded by advertisements wherever we go; on the bus, in movie theaters, grocery stores, etc. The pictures in these advertisements generate an ideal female beauty that all women should have. In reality, no one really looks like they do on the cover of a magazine. Pictures are edited for hours, being touched up over and over again until it is perfect. I was shocked when Kilbourne said that many times photographs are pieced together from pictures of four different people; one person’s body, another person’s eyes, another person’s hair, etc. It shows that our society goes to great lengths to be seen as perfect and portray this perfect image as normalcy, or what we should look like. These images are not real, just like the Dove Campaign video explains to us. Though there are many women that strive for this perfect image that is seen in advertisements.

You can tell many people, especially women, take time to make them self look pretty before heading out the door in the morning. I remember in high school when girls would wear sweat pants, tie their hair up, and not put any makeup on at all. It was not frowned upon or seen as “grungy”. Today, my little sister who is in high school, rarely ever wears sweat pants, gets up every morning to straighten her hair, and looks very put together for school. There is so much pressure to look beautiful, be perfect, and carry these ideal female beauty qualities. Although many other women do not feel they have to get all dolled up for class, these ideas of beauty seen in advertisements are still being though about subconsciously. I find myself falling into this trap of the ideal female beauty because although I do not feel it is necessary to wear my nicest clothing to school, the idea of having a thin body, looking clean, and other beauty aspects run through my mind regularly, like Kilbourne had mentioned in her speech.