Blog 10: "Healthy Body Image"

The first song I chose was "Upgrade U" by Beyonce. I chose this song because it's about how she is so amazing that she can make him better. Without her he couldn't be who he is. He needs her to be all that he can be. She upgrades him.

I chose "Video" by India Arie for obvious reasons of course. She is not the typical image of beauty that is perpetuated in society, but she still loves herself because she knows she worthy for more than shaking it in a video. She doesn't need to look like them and she accepts her beauty for what it is. She is beautiful even though she is not the typical beauty queen.

I chose "Dollhouse" by Priscilla Renea because she begins talking about how she transformed herself to be what she thought her man wanted, but soon realized that she is not the "doll" he wanted to be. She was losing herself in being what he wanted and knew it just wasn't right. She decides to leave him because he cannot accept her for who she truly is.

I chose "Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera because this songs just talks about how you're beautiful no matter what you look like and you should accept yourself for who you are because you are beautiful in every single way. It tells you to stop trying to be something you're not and accept your own beauty. Don't let others words and feelings about you bring you down and bring yourself up.

I chose "Put Your Records On" by Corinne Bailey Rae because she talks about just loving life and not letting anything bring you down. Its one of those feel good songs. Don't worry about all life's little troubles and accept the beautiful moments of life. Just live your life and be you.

I chose "Girl Like Me" by Rihanna because she talks about how she is not willing to settle for second best. She is a girl that is willing to truly wait for her true love. She wants a man that is willing to accept her flaws and all and willing to be there for her. Too many women settle for a man and will take any kind of treatment to keep a man and this song says that you should find that man that will treat you like a queen.

I chose "I Am Not My Hair" by India Arie because she talks about how her hair does not define who she is. Her appearance does not define who she is and not to make assumptions about who you think she is by what you see. You should get to know the person within before you decide who someone is.

I chose "Be OK" by Chrisette Michele because she sings about how she will move on and from her relationship because she doesn't need a man to make her feel good. She loved him at one point but she doesn't need him to make her who she is.

I really don't think that my taste in music has really changed. When I was younger I used to listen to more pop music, but that is about the only difference.

The readings about hip hop culture was an interesting look at the music I listen to. It reminded me of the 2 part BET series "Hip Hop in America." The second reading mentioned how they should do that and have the rapper and the video ho say their piece and that series did just that. Nelly, Melyssa Ford, and David Banner joined in the discussion alongside influential black leaders such as Micheal Eric Dyson (who I just love to hear speak) and Cornel West. I really wished that they would have had a record exec or top head of the music who says yes or no.

I did agree with the obsession of the "ethnically ambiguous" although I was confused by the Gabrielle Union reference in one of the articles. You do see the typical girl in every video: small waist with big boobs and booty, long hair, and fair skin. If there is a dark skin girl, her face is not typically shown and the focus is her booty. Buffie the Body is a famous dark skin video girl and when she is typically in a video they constantly only make frames around her booty. She is typically looking over her shoulder in the video becaus her booty is the main focus.

Media Analysis

To find the offensive advertisement, I googled advertisements for men because the most offensive advertisements that I see are directed towards men. The first advertisement that caught me off guard was a Tom Ford advertisement for men’s cologne1. This was only the first of many offensive advertisements2-5 for this exact same product. It was just so blatantly disgusting that I knew that this had to be the topic of my offensive advertisement for this paper.
I can’t really understand what the advertisement is saying or implying. All the advertisement is is a bottle of perfume in covering a woman’s vagina. I could not even possibly imagine up any kind of explanation of this advertisement except that it would gain a lot of media coverage because it is so explicit. Possibly, it could be making the woman suffice to the closest thing that she has to man. Maybe the cologne is the man that she longs for who wears this cologne.
The advertisement is obviously trying to attract men (rather they are gay or straight). Tom Ford is a homosexual man that is not afraid to portray men or women in a sexual manner. The advertisement is in the gay male point of view who thinks sexy is being naked. It’s funny that when we talk about beauty standards and how the fashion industry influences these beauty standards, but the fashion industry is predominantly composed of homosexual males. The advertisement is a white female, with an obvious Brazilian wax, covering her vagina with a bottle of cologne. The picture really has nothing to do with the product. Much like Olympians posing naked or near naked exposing just enough to see that they were thoroughly waxed (Levy 19-20). Sex sells but this is outrageous. It makes me wonder how the advertisement did not get banned from the blatant nudity and how provocative the advertisement was.
This image helps work toward the image of passive, vulnerable women in that the face of the female is not even shown. Therefore, she is not given an identity and is just merely a backdrop to sell the product. The product, which is directly in front of her vagina, is the main focus of the image. She is silenced in her work. She is merely a prop to hold up the product which is obviously more important than who she is.
Tom Ford advertisements have shown that they do not discriminate in objectification. Men and women get the same amount of objectification. It is different in the fact that one advertisement5 actually shows the man’s face with the bottle covering his penis. He is worthy enough of having an identity instead of being a mere backdrop to the cologne. It is not as harsh to men in that sense, but it all sends the wrong message at the end of the day. They portray an unattainable body image just as women’s advertisements which could potentially be just as equally harmful to young men.
Sexuality is used to sell all kinds of products. The main products that are sold by sexuality are directly associated with the senses such as: smell, taste, and touch. Just as in this cologne product. Women’s sense of smell is the primary indicator of memory and sexual attention. What I mean by that is, a woman can turn from 60 to 0 if a man smells bad. Burger commercials6 are getting worse and worse with using sexuality to sell their products. Products such as razors, lotion, and body wash7, which deal with smell and touch, are using sexuality to extremes in selling their products.
Perfume and cologne advertisements are more overtly sexual because of the scent issue. Scent is the strongest indicator of memories. Also, when we think of smelling and scent we think of pheromones and how they increase sexual advances. It’s as if the smell is so irresistible to the point where we cannot handle ourselves and animalistic tendencies take over us. We revert back to something as simplistic as sex just from the scent. I think maybe that is where they are going with it. Part of it could be the wanting to be couture element of it, “…Pierrot knitwear show was set up like a mock porno shoot with the designer, Pierre Carrilero, playing the director and the models rolling around in various familiar porn tableaux (Levy 24). Couture is supposed to be out there and make a shock value to the product.

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The advertisement that I choose that sends a positive message is part of the dove real beauty campaign. The advertisement is an older African American woman of a particular age who is completely shed of her clothing. She is not posing provocatively or playing up her sexuality. She is merely covering her assets with a warm and calm smile on her face. She has a short, gray afro and is not wearing many accessories. Even in the African American community she is in the minority, “Clearly, those making the choice to be “happy nappy” are in the minority…They often face criticisms of being unrefined, unhygienic, low class and ugly (Edut 131)”
She is showing her real beauty to the world and letting us know that there is not only one type of beauty out there for the world to see. She is not shamed about her body, but accepts and loves her body as it gets better with age. Her body is real and beautiful and not altered to be anything that she is not. She has clearly made the decision, like Regina D. Williams, to not make someone else’s opinion her reality (Edut 185) and is taking strides in changing their opinion. She is not hiding behind a product or put in the background to display the product.
The advertisement is selling dove’s skin care line. They are not trying to change this woman’s body with their products but maintaining and caring for the body that she possesses. So many advertisements show what they want to change to be the newer and younger model instead of accepting the reality of aging and finding the beauty of the older woman. I do not know the age of this woman, but not many advertisements would should a woman over thirty-five especially a naked or scantily clad woman.
The advertisement implies acceptance and finding the beauty within you. Real beauty is not in a magazine, but it is often looked over. You should not be afraid to age, wrinkle, sag, or grow gray hair. You are beautiful as are and don’t need to alter time’s beauty. Aging is beautiful and accepting and recognizing your beauty is even more beautiful. Your appearance should not define who you are; it’s all about how you feel at the end of the day. We all will grow old and should accept life’s changes. Personally, I cannot wait to grow old and find out what I will look like.
This advertisement is targeting women. I believe they would like to target every woman, but their primary audience will be that of older women. The point of view of the advertisement is that aging is beautiful. Real beauty doesn’t come from a bottle, but the confidence and acceptance of your body is real beauty. This woman is not afraid to show what a real woman looks like and she would also like the world to accept and love her body as she does. She is not the typical model.
Another reason that I chose these two particular advertisements to analyze was because of the fact that the positive advertisement that I chose was banned for nudity. This all makes me wonder what the standards are for something to be too nude and something to be just the right amount of nudity. Should the African American woman have placed dove bottles in front of the money shots? Would that have made the picture just right? Personally, I think it is because of the model that was chosen to be in the advertisement. She was too old, she had too much identity, not tone enough, too gray, too urban, or whatever it may be. I wasn’t there so do not quote me, but something is not right about this picture.
I like this advertisement. I like that it combats the stereotype that older women are not beautiful and need to alter themselves to look younger and more “beautiful” before they can be accepted by society. The advertisement challenges the ideal image. She is not a young white female with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a button nose. She is in fact the opposite and loves every piece of being just that. Beauty has no age limit.

WORKS CITED
Edut, Ophira, ed. Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image. California: Seal Press, 2003.
Levy, Ariel. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture.

Blog 9: "Popular Culture"

I would say that I don't look to popular culture to influence my views on men and women because popular culture uses so many stereotypes to portray people that it gets sickening. I don't think you can judge people just from what you see because there's always more than meets the eye. I do think that popular culture does mirror reality, but only a piece of it. Popular culture also picks and chooses what they want to show to say what "reality" is. It is exactly the same concerning race and class. Everything that is shown within pop culture has to be taken with a grain of salt because so much is edited and revamped for good television. It's all entertainment at the end of the day, so their only gonna show you what they want to portray.

A lot of sexist things that happen, I think we have become synthesized to so we don't even notice. I will see some commercials that are geared towards men and I am wondering what boobs and booty has anything to do with their product. Nowadays it seems that products for women are moving towards being the male fantasy. It's almost as if every other commercial is geared towards men. Men commercials are use this product and "hot" women will want you then women's commercials are use this product and you will be seen as sexy like this woman who men want.

I googled "feminist stereotypes" and found this offensive image. Says a lot about our culture.

I can say that, before coming to college, when I heard the word feminist I would view a big butch chick with a buzz cut and no makeup as the face of feminism. Part of that stereotype comes from how men talk about feminism. Which now that I think about it is probably the worst source ever. I had never met or known a feminist or researched into it. When I see pictures of prominent feminists, they are beautiful educated women who just want to be respected for their minds rather than what their appearance offers. Its disheartening that they get such a bad rep just for wanting to be respected, but part of that is because so much of society, like those men creating visuals of feminists with harsh words, want women to be seen and not heard.