Recently i have become rather aggravated by the subjective mass media in the relation to body weight. I find it rather infuriating how the mass media subjectively corrupts a distorted image upon body weight. Purposely stigmatising many body sizes with negativity. Especially within the American media system. As the ‘ideal’ body type that is religiously portrayed for females across most media platforms, is in fact only possessed naturally by only a staggering 5% of american females. Just alone within America it has been reported that up to 24 million people of all ages/genders suffer from an eating disorder but most astoundingly 10-15% of sufferers are males. What is so astounding about this percentage is that whenever you have heard ‘eating disorder’ it is subjectively attached to females in particular. This firmly highlights how a reform within the media is drastically needed across all platforms. As in society ( in all cultures) there is simply a ‘loss transition stage’ upon myths within eating disorders and the underlying truth. The media has firmly created a diluted distorted image to society for a staggering number of years. This i believe is to be foreshowing another strategy of formal social control; decisively manipulating most individuals into an ideological state of false consciousness. i.e. many corporations prefer to add to the public delusions by segregating the truth and overly elaborating upon what consumers ‘prefer’ to hear/see, which is Inhumane on all aspects. As for instance; if the firm truth was for shown upon what is in fact in slimming pills, the slimming pill market would become bankrupt. ( in 2007 in was reported that there were 2,300 websites selling slimming pills, with global sales up to £30 billion.) A young girl this year (2015) had lost her life to slimming pills, due to buying them online without knowing what was consumed within them. Many are in fact illegal within the UK, due to a high proportion containing unknown ingredients. However even though severe incidents have occurred, slimming pills are still vigorously consumed within the public domain and are still featured within many beauty- orientated stores/ magazines.
Wondrously Leading onto….
Cynical. I find this advert firstly demoralising for the consumer and secondly dehumanising. The advert has foreshown women in an diluted nymphet way: objectifying females to becoming dependent, relying on a counter source to supply them with what they are ‘deemed’ to be unable to simply do: choice. It highlights the daunted substantial connection between ‘self image’ and ‘weight’. Society has become almost obsessed with due to the reinforcement upon the mass medias demeaning ideology that enforces individuals into a state of false consciousness. In theory it is rather extraordinary how one is unable to notice that they're just a consumer to the product and how they are inferior to the mainstream capitalistic product at hand.
‘wow you lost weight, you look great!’ this is directly followed by a female who appears to have never seen her friend on a text message before looking rather harmonious and confident within her self?
Another factor to take into consideration is that the women is portrayed to be self loathing, un-attractive (in reflection to her attire: slobbish) to a direct link of her mental state of conclusion: unable to loose weight for her ‘holiday’. Whilst her friend is featured in a tight fitting dress and is ‘holiday ready’. Again the advert has assumed that women are only motivated to loose weight prior to a special occasion and any other time they are rather excelled with their overall appearance. Slightly ironic. Individuals have been socially engrained to link purchasing items and looking ‘thin’ as a correct combination that will somehow correlate onto how you look in an garment or somehow out of the inner self you mysteriously become more confident. Has it never sprung to a companies mind that maybe an individual may feel more confident due to something that is not related to loosing weight? Theres numerous reinforcements upon the media that latch onto this fact and we have become susceptible to endorse this ridiculing matter. Personally for myself I tend to purchase an item ( typically something from a charity shop) due to the material it is made out of/ the overall appearance of it not because i suddenly lost one pound (usually I do loose one pound but its typically in money, sorry to disappoint you XLS).
I shall leave you on this lasting task: The next time you come across a featuring slimming advert- just peer upon the women portrayed and what direct links are correlated with weight.
