A Sociological Analysis Of The Anti-Aging Industry
Samantha Hernandez
Final Project — Media
Sociology of Aging
Our Anti-Aging Society
“Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.”
-David Bowie
For the final project, I wanted to create a medium that reveals how unhealthy the the anti-aging industry is in our society and the negative impact it has on our self-esteem. I created a PSA poster similar to the “burn book” seen in the movie, Mean Girls. In the movie, the plastics create a book that bashes all of the people they hate in their high-school. They write hateful and false messages next to the girl’s picture. I found a similar connection to both the burn book and anti-aging advertisements that we see on a daily basis in magazines, commercials, …show more content…
What do these controlling images do to our society? It seems that aging is considered to be something horrible, women are shamed for aging, and that we are youth obsessed. We view old is bad and young is good. I believe it’s time to put an end to this behavior and change how we think and talk about aging in the media for good. In this paper, I focused the demographic on women only because I feel as though anti-aging advertisements target women more than men in the marketplace.
I will discuss the influence anti-aging advertisements have on our society and how it effects our views of older women. Then, I will go into detail on why we should take these advertisements serious because of the harmful consequences and ageist conceptions that comes with them. Lastly, I will end on a positive note of how we can fight the dangerous anti-aging misconceptions and …show more content…
According to Clake & Griffin, “The loss of a youth appearance is particularly damaging to women, who are socialized to be more more concerned with their appearances than their male counterparts.” Added to this, women are also more likely than men to be part of age discrimination in the workplace associated with their appearance. Employers tend to perceive women to be older than their same-age male colleagues. Women’s careers and peak earnings occur at an earlier age than their male counterparts (Clarke & Griffin, 2008). Through these messages, we are constantly pressured to look young, be obsessed with anti-aging products, and be filled with panic due to our flaws not being fixed within a quick
Final Project — Media
Sociology of Aging
Our Anti-Aging Society
“Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.”
-David Bowie
For the final project, I wanted to create a medium that reveals how unhealthy the the anti-aging industry is in our society and the negative impact it has on our self-esteem. I created a PSA poster similar to the “burn book” seen in the movie, Mean Girls. In the movie, the plastics create a book that bashes all of the people they hate in their high-school. They write hateful and false messages next to the girl’s picture. I found a similar connection to both the burn book and anti-aging advertisements that we see on a daily basis in magazines, commercials, …show more content…
What do these controlling images do to our society? It seems that aging is considered to be something horrible, women are shamed for aging, and that we are youth obsessed. We view old is bad and young is good. I believe it’s time to put an end to this behavior and change how we think and talk about aging in the media for good. In this paper, I focused the demographic on women only because I feel as though anti-aging advertisements target women more than men in the marketplace.
I will discuss the influence anti-aging advertisements have on our society and how it effects our views of older women. Then, I will go into detail on why we should take these advertisements serious because of the harmful consequences and ageist conceptions that comes with them. Lastly, I will end on a positive note of how we can fight the dangerous anti-aging misconceptions and …show more content…
According to Clake & Griffin, “The loss of a youth appearance is particularly damaging to women, who are socialized to be more more concerned with their appearances than their male counterparts.” Added to this, women are also more likely than men to be part of age discrimination in the workplace associated with their appearance. Employers tend to perceive women to be older than their same-age male colleagues. Women’s careers and peak earnings occur at an earlier age than their male counterparts (Clarke & Griffin, 2008). Through these messages, we are constantly pressured to look young, be obsessed with anti-aging products, and be filled with panic due to our flaws not being fixed within a quick