Women’s Representation in Media

Travelling around any city in the world, one would always be exposed to a vast number of billboards, posters or flyers either advertising a product, promoting a film or expediting the sales of a magazine. But, what do we observe in all these pictures? Have you ever noticed the common thread among all these advertisings? This article aims to highlight the criteria for beauty in the media industry, its impact on men, women and adolescents, and the abuse of women in the media industry.

Criterion for Beauty

After observing a number of advertisements on the billboards around and the ones printed on the newspapers, I noticed one peculiar thing. Most of the models in the advertisements and film actresses, especially in India, are fair-skinned and possess a specific body-type. This observation of mine received further validation through an article I had read about the song All About the Bass by US singer Meghan Trainor. As the song progresses, one would observe that the lyrics of the song encourages a strong revolution against the stereotypes for beauty as actresses and model even have their photos photoshopped to make them look thinner or more curvy thus adapting to the stereotyped conceptions of specific body types for  beauty in women.

Coming to the Indian context, we see that fairness is considered as the epitome of beauty. Just watch the various advertisements promoting the use of fairness creams and anti-aging serums. This has reached to such an extent that nowadays fair-skinned actresses take on roles where they play dark-skinned characters. Their make-up artists make them look de-glam and darker than their original skin tone. One of the upcoming debates in the media industry is whether such a trend should be encouraged. A clear example of this trend is the portrayal of Bhumi Pednekar as a dark-skinned girl in the movie Bala. On a personal note, I have no issues with the movie as a whole nor with the actress, however, it is the signing of a fair-skinned woman to play the role of a dark-skinned woman that really bugs me. Why couldn’t the directors not just sign a woman with a darker complexion for the role?

Impact on women and men

This criterion for beauty in women has severe repercussions on the outlook towards beauty by men and women. For women, it could lead to a loss of self-worth and a rejection of the way one is. Let me provide an example for you. This example has been derived from one of our classes on ‘Philosophy of Communication’. Many of the fashion magazines that are published consists of photos of women who are thin, curvy and fair. Most of these models are below 30 and fit in the category of young women. However, most of the magazine’s audience are middle aged women who are either managing a family or have a bright career ahead of them. They would have lost their focus on maintaining their body size and concentrating more on their careers and family. So, when they go through these magazines, there is a certain unconscious feeling of rejection of the way their bodies are. They eventually get attracted to the advertisements promoting products that will help them to look fairer and younger. Thus, they forget to accept themselves as they are but compare themselves to those ‘young and attractive’ models.

For men, this criterion of beauty, changes their whole perspective on women’s beauty. Being exposed to a huge array of fair-skinned, young and curvy women in the advertisement posters and films, there is a strong inclination to notice only such people as beautiful. There is a general movement to see beauty in terms of physical feature rather than personality and qualities. In fact, even when most men pass through the streets, they would tend to look at these features in women to determine their beauty. A further validation that shows that fairness as a criterion for beauty is ingrained in us comes from the book blink by Malcolm Gladwell. In the book, Malcolm writes about a test he had taken to determine whether he was racist or no. At the end of the test, he was surprised to know that he was more racist towards the Blacks. It was indeed surprising since he himself was an Afro-American. In his conclusion, he says that the portrayal of fair-skinned people as the ones in power, unconsciously affects our own psyche to think that that proposition hold true. I strongly believe that if there is such a tremendous effect on our perception of people with a fair complexion, it will affect even our idea of a ‘perfect body type’ (which I believe does not exist, since we all are unique in our own way)

Body Positivity and other movements

With the growing awareness of the reel presentation of women in the media industry there has been a growing trend in the body positivity movement and similar other movements. Such movements arose so as to help people and in special way women, to accept their natural body type and to avoid comparisons with the “ideal and attractive women” as presented in media. Although the song All About the Bass did receive a certain amount of criticism from such movements, it did bring about a certain resurgence for women to accept their natural body type.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would say that body-shaming and objectifying women has been a perennial trend throughout the growth of the media industry. However, as people became aware of these false images of women presented by media personnel they slowly began to react to this practice. This gave rise to various movements such as the body positivity movement, that encouraged people to accept their natural body type rather than hating it when comparing it to the ‘photoshopped’ images of models and actresses. Though this trend of presenting thin, curvy and fair-skinned women as ‘goddesses of beauty’, the raise in body positivity movements are helping people to look beyond the mere physical features. It is making progress and will eventually change the way women are presented in media.