Through deconstructing The Devil Wears Prada the goal of this study is to prove that fashion in relation to a woman’s appearance is inherent to society’s definition of femininity and perceived professional competency. As mentioned earlier the heroines of makeover films are often depicted as independent women that make a conscious choice not to conform to society’s standard of femininity, because they put their emphasis on their intellect rather than their appearance. In The Devil Wears Prada the protagonist Andy Sachs fits the academic and dowdy female protagonist archetype that makeover films typically perpetuate. Andy Sachs follows the makeover film formula in the sense that she starts out the film as an intellectual with a blatant disregard for her appearance and performance of femininity. When Andy realizes how feminine performance or lack there of effects her perceived ability to do her job efficiently she adjusts her appearance to fit societally accepted…
Today many women have become overwhelmed with doing the simple day-to-day tasks. Most women get up one to two hours before actually starting their day just to feel and look presentable. Throughout the story Mascara, the phrase “and then she” is displayed in almost every sentence. This story is not just about someone’s routine but it is in fact a list. A list that most women feel they have to go though everyday or every time they are going to go out somewhere. Most women have a false perspective of what they have to look like due to the corruption in today’s society and media. The overwhelming idea that society and the media have put into young women’s minds make them feels as if they have to keep changing who they are. Many people think…
“That is the best part of beauty, which a picture cannot express,” Francis Bacon observes in his “Essay on the Subject.” And yet for centuries, we’ve attempted again and again to define beauty from social, cultural and religious perspectives. But in spite of establishing numerous theoretical definition, we continue to try for a substantial, solid and material structure to define women’s beauty. “Attitudes toward beauty are entwined with our deepest conflicts surrounding flesh and spirit,” Harvard’s Nancy Etcoff wrote in her article, “Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty.” Indeed, “beauty is a complex beast surrounded by our equally complex attitudes”, and “The Myth of the Latin…
There is a cliché quote that people say, “Beauty is in the eye of beholder.” But in the essay “The Ugly Truth About Beauty” (1998) Dave Barry argues about how women who spend countless hours on their so called “beauty” whereas men seem not to care. Barry uses juxtaposition and exaggeration to poke fun at men and women behavior and shed light on the harm that the beauty industry is doing. When Barry argues his point of his essay he addresses both genders, but more specifically teenage to middle age men and women, but he writes about it in a humorous and light-hearted manner.…
Today’s cultural standards play a major role in how people see us, especially in young female teens. Two women, authors Pamela Abbott and Francesca Sapsford wrote, “Clothing the Young Female Body” and argue that the fashion industry and the media are imperative to how a young female chooses their clothes. Abbott and Sapsford Begin their argument by first giving reader’s examples of where young teens are influenced, they state that advertisements and media paint pictures in teens mind on how they should dress and look like. Throughout the article they provide readers quotes from experts and give us an even bigger insight on how teen females…
In the essay of “There Is No Unmarked Woman”, Deborah Tannen explains it best through the statement that “There is no unmarked woman” (Tannen 412). No matter what hairstyle, clothes, shoes, or style a woman may choose to wear, every one of her decisions will convey a meaning to the public. “If a woman’s clothing is tight or revealing…it sends a message…If her clothes are not sexy, that too sends a message…” (Tannen 412). There are even instances where the clothes are not the cause of criticism, for a woman may be criticized upon her genetic features. As written in the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercg, a little girl grows up healthy and intelligent, but because other people deemed her as physically inadequate by having “a great big nose and fat legs”, the girl is coerced into change, and not anything like a difference in wardrobe, but permanent change with cosmetic surgery (Piercg 378). Such an occurrence is not far from reality for there are women who will do whatever it takes to be deemed as conventionally…
The theme of Gender Socialisation is present within most aspects of our lives; from the name we are given to the identity form we fill out as an adult; this is no different within fashion.…
Identity is one concept that is easily influential, though it can be destroyed by society. There are aspects that strengthen who we are as an individual, or weaken by conforming to society’s pressured expectations of how and who to be in life.In the novel, Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, and in The Twilight zone episode “Number 12 Looks Just Like You”, identity is weakened when it comes to society’s values. In the articles “It’s a Personal Choice” by Dorris Day and “Mannequins Give Shape to a Venezuelan Fantasy” by William Neuman, both mention how woman change their appearance in order to fit into society. Individuals feel the need to be accepted by society, even if it means changing who they truly are. Today’s society has mirrored images of a conformed identity rather than…
Beautiful, pretty, good-looking are all the adjectives that women and girls aspire to be or encouraged to strive for in their life. From the first years of a young girl’s life, she’s told to wear dresses and comb her hair so when she looks into the mirror, she’ll see beauty reflected back at her so that consequently this shallow image of beauty is adopted by her consciousness. Yet as the years pass, she comes to a point in her life where the very aspect of her being is put into question because of what she’s seen on television or heard on the radio so that as a young woman she constantly feels the need to conform to a patriarchal society’s standards of beauty in order to be accepted. Now let’s look at this transition in a young female’s life through the eyes of an African-American girl who grows up being told to wear this and to do her hair like this in order to look pretty. At such a young age, she may not have been affected by the demands and expectations of beauty that was put upon her, but as she grows and develops a deeper understanding of the images around her, she will realize that the images of beauty presented before her do…
Have you ever looked in the mirror and analyzed your body through comparing to others, listening to others, or remembering stories? In Heti’s, Julvatis’, and Shapton’s “Wear Areas,” women reveal their insecurities about their bodies through telling stories, restating what people have said, and comparing to other people. All the women have many insecurities and share their most prominent ones with readers. These self-doubts vary from how they wear their hair to not having the same body features as their family. “Wear Areas” ironically uses other people’s insecurities to help readers recognize and then abandon their own insecurities so that they can live a more fulfilled life.…
In the article “Are We Witnessing the Death of Modesty?”, the author discusses her viewpoints on modesty. She points out that the absence of modesty is becoming increasingly more evident in today’s society, while the values of self-respect and purity are declining. She also expresses her deep concern for future generations in regards to the impact that immodesty may leave. According to the author’s beliefs, people are losing sight of the importance of modesty and the significance it should hold within one’s life. She strongly feels that the body is not an object for the viewing pleasure of others. The article mostly focuses on how the virtues of modesty are becoming lost in our world as immodesty is becoming widespread among young women, and is even spreading to the youth of today.…
Post-feminism endorses rejection of practices that identify the differences between male and female. For example, the recent movements to refuse to shave legs or underarms as well as cosmetics. Post-feminism re-evaluates the relation between femininity and feminism, establishing a new subjective space for women. While there is a constant struggle to establish a cultural idea of femininity, fashion has a huge impact in bewilderment of this image. As McRobbie argues: ‘’Fashion is a tool of post-feminism for gender re-positioning. This is carried out through the idea of what she calls ’post-feminist masquerade’. This kind of ’re-positioning’…
Yet the most contradictory routine our culture has developed, is that even though we preach “you are beautiful just the way you are,” we still have vast amounts of brands for make-up, hair products, slimming pills, and even surgery for those who can afford it, just so that people can feel “prettier” than they already are. We go off in our little worlds, loving people not for who they are or who they will be, but…
The authors discuss power between the false consciousness and free choice perspective. They look at different agents of beauty such as; “....media and fashion, their observations of other women, and their own perceptions of men’s observations of themselves and other women” (Gagne and McGaughey, 208). Meaning, these are where the women's’ perceptions came from. While interviewing the women, the authors noticed, that the women stated that they were influenced by certain things to want to undergo the elective mammoplasty surgery. Most of their responses were social factors, that aligned with the agents of beauty. With both of those things combined, women developed insecurities that they wanted to fix to fit the hegemonic beauty…
With popular culture setting the norms for society women are left at a large disadvantage as far as how they are viewed and treated in society. As stated in the lecture “These sources have created many different cultural norms and expectations as well as have affected sexuality and sexual behavior. These sources have dictated many gender expectations and have subjugated women in many aspects of social life.” (Reali, 2017) In popular culture beauty among women is one of the most romanticized topics.…