Perfection And Media Analysis

What is "Perfection”? Currently in our society, looks mean everything. People care so much about their appearance that they are going above and beyond to achieve the look the media makes us believe is perfect. Women are going to the most credited plastic surgeons and men are going to the gym and taking muscle growth supplements more than ever before. But who is to blame? The celebrities demonstrating perfection, the media exposing their flawless pictures, or our own insecure minds? Not only is this epidemic of trying to be perfect getting worse, but also it is starting to affect people as young as grammar school students. The media has never played such an important role in our society and how we look at ourselves in the mirror by exposing us to their idea of “perfection” and making us want to achieve this flawless physical apperance, but our minds are also at fault at making us believe that we are not perfect. Most of the time, whether it is on television or in a magazine, the media shows an image of a celebrity and then comments on it. If they think the celebrity looks bad
in the picture, they will say it even if the picture looks fine to a normal person. Yet surprisingly, even if your average person disagrees with them, whether it’s the face, hair, or outfit that is being neglected by the media, the person will not try to mimic that image. What society as a whole fails to realize is that 100% of those pictures are photo-shopped and enhanced to make celebrities look thinner, more muscular, and more beautiful than they actually are. Most of our society wants to be perfect. They want to look just like the celebrities that are getting positive feedback about them by the media to feel like they are perfect as well. People take into consideration what is considered beautiful and put it to practice in their everyday life. For example, if a reality talk show host says that the trend of the moment is having your hair half up, half down, chances are the women of our society will start wearing their hair like that. They’ll say,” I am going to do my hair like this because so and so said all the celebrities are doing it and it looks nice”. The people behind the media really have no idea how much of an impact they have on our society today, including men. Men today are also very self-conscious about how other people see them and are almost just as pressured about looks as women are. In the past years, men have never done as much as they are doing now to be even close what the media considers “perfect”. They go to the gym, tanning, and are also eating healthy. Men do not fall short of mimicking celebrities either. You can often see them wearing the latest trends trying to look like Kanye West, or you can see that most men are cutting their hair a certain way like many of the actors are getting it cut. Men see how much women drool over hot, famous men and they will do whatever to try to also have women drooling over them. Men like to feel as if they were so good-looking and powerful that they can have whichever woman they choose. In “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…Are Muscular Men the Best of All”, Nancy Clark says, “According to Olivardia, compared to ordinary men, muscular men tend to command more respect and are deemed more powerful, threatening, and sexually virile”. This statement is very accurate in most cases. Men who are bigger frighten smaller people because the smaller person thinks, “If I say something wrong, he is going to beat me up since he is so muscular” (304). For example, this relates to why nightclub owners only hire big men as bouncers. Your average Joe would never confront a big bouncer at a club because they know they will get pushed and shoved out of the club. The way the people in our society sees themselves has only gotten worse over the past years.
If you ask your grandparents or even your parents what images they saw in the media when they were younger, you would be astonished. Women were not getting nose jobs or exercising everyday. Men were not working out at the gym everyday to get tone and fit like the famous people. People were actually content with the way they look because the media did not make an image of “perfection”. For example, Marilyn Monroe was considered America’s most beautiful girl. She was breathtakingly beautiful. Even though she was not the skinniest girl out there, society admired her voluptuous curves. The majority of women today do not admire their natural thickness. They need to wear the smallest size possible and not have any fat on their bodies, but is that actual beauty? Many would agree and many would
disagree. Most women today do not care about their natural attributes and are doing anything in their will power to change them. Women are even going as far as asking family members for plastic surgery gift certificates in order to achieve their perception of perfection. In “For You, My Lovely, A Facelift”, Helena Rasin said, “A nose job is the best Christmas present ever because you’ll have it forever… It’s not like some sweater you do not like and have to take back to the store. Even with the bandages still on, I can already tell I look cuter” (298). Many women today are going under the knife with the support of their family. Does the acceptance of plastic surgery by family members harm the person wanting the permanent change? Not necessarily. I can personally relate to this topic from previous experience, which I usually keep to myself. When I was sixteen years old, I was very self-conscious about the focal point of my face, which was my nose. I often referred to it as “Toucan Sam’s beak” because it was so big and curved. It bothered me so much that I was starting to avoid even looking in mirrors so I would not have to see my nose. After admitting to my parents that I was uncomfortable in my own skin, I told them that I had saved up enough to pay for a nose job and was hoping they would support me because I was very unhappy with the way I saw myself. At first, they were very upset to see me uncomfortable with myself but then after months of convincing them and actually showing them how much it affected my confidence and happiness, they gave in. Being the supportive parents that they are, we flew to their homeland of Colombia and went through with the nose job. Today, I am very happy with the outcome and my confidence is at an all time high. If my parents were never supportive about this change, I would still be the miserable teenager that I once was. I got the nose job not because I saw a celebrity with a nice nose and I wanted it, I got it because I was truly unhappy with the way I looked. On the other hand, many people getting surgeries to enhance their bodies are not getting it because they want to perfect, they are getting them because they are miserable with their current physical appearance. Women have never been so pressured to achieve what the media considers perfect as they are today. Without realizing it, the media has very harsh feedback about celebrities. For example, “Fashion Police” is a show on E! that talks non-stop about what celebrities are wearing. They always do a special episode after a big awards show like to Grammy’s or the Oscars. Joan Rivers, the main host, is considered one of the most brutal women in our fashion world today. Whether the celebrity is wearing a plan black dress or and extravagant green dress, she always has something to say. People like her do not realize how much they influence normal women. If she says that a celebrity looks absolutely horrid with a pair of jeans and a blazer, most women will not wear jeans and a blazer. Women want to look like famous celebrities and they yearn to be perfect, therefore, they are not going to wear what other famous people consider ugly. The reality is that women and men today are doing anything to achieve what the media considers “perfection”. There are some people that are not influenced by the media that go through with plastic surgeries because they are truly uncomfortable with how they look, but why? If there was no media, would we still be uncomfortable with the way we look? No because we would not know what others see as beautiful. The media has to stop encouraging normal people to try to look like the celebrities that do not have one ounce of fat in their bodies or the ones that pay $500 for a Givenchy shirt. The media today is ruining society because people just are not themselves when trying to achieve that look. They are trying to be someone they are not and that is not what the American culture is about. This epidemic is getting worse over time because even young kids are being affected by this and are putting on makeup just look like they belong in a magazine. What type of society will we be in 100 years if we continue this way? Our society will be filled with more materialistic people than it is now trying to always be seen as perfect by the people that surround them.

Works Cited
Clark, Nancy. "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall ... Are Musuclar Men the Best of All?" Changing Society (2004): 304.
Singer, Natasha. "For You, My Lovely, A Facelift." Changing Society (2005): 298.