Preview

The Illusions of Romantic Comedies and its Effect on Marriage

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
3432 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Illusions of Romantic Comedies and its Effect on Marriage
Rhetoric 195
29 November 2011

The Illusions of Romantic Comedies and its Effect on Marriage

It is no surprise that while the media is a source for news, education, and primarily entertainment, it has also been influencing society regarding our beliefs and values in a variety of ways. Consequently, media influence is often used in studies such as communication and sociology, to examine the affects it has on its audience. Sociologists refer to this as a mediated culture where media reflects and creates the culture. Throughout our day, from the moment we get up, we are exposed to a multitude of messages from numerous forms of media. This includes everything from reading the newspaper or watching the news to be informed on current events, watching other television programs, listening to the radio, and reading magazines for entertainment, and using the internet and social networks to communicate with others. However, while most studies that have received awareness have been centralized on the media influence of violence, politics, and body image, the affects the media can impact on a marriage, has not been as publicized. While the media certainly influences our standards and expectations when it comes to status and body image, this paper will further that notion and highlight what is often overlooked—how our constantly transforming values due to media influence, specifically the films we see, will ultimately affect our idea of gender roles, which are thus activated in a marriage. The media has been to blame for several issues, such as eating disorders among young girls due to the images we see on television, in magazines, and on billboards, that create a false representation of what is considered normal and beautiful. These media images are often used in advertising that convinces us we need certain products in order to improve ourselves, and make ourselves more desirable to the opposite sex. Authors of the article, Expose the Illusions, Crack the Codes:

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Over years, the influence of mass media has increased tremendously, with the increase of technology. First there was reading material such as books, newspapers, and magazines along with photography. Then, sound recordings, films, radio, television, came thereafter; and now Internet, which is now the new media, is social media. However, theses types of media tools, do effect emotional arousal, sex and behavior identification, and changes in allocation of time, consumer purchase, and voting behavior. There is some evidence that mass media influence these types of interests and interest-related behavior, public taste, outlook and values, and inactiveness. In this essay I will be discuss developments, milestones, and applications exemplifying changes in media portrayal of sex and violence, I will explain how the negative effects of sex and violence on children have increased in media technology and how the negative effects of sex and violence on adults have increased in media technology, I also will make specific recommendations about how the problems of media portrayal of sex and violence might be minimized and I will show how media portrayals of sex and violence relate to…

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In a world where image seems to be everything, it's hard not to pay attention to the way you look. For a long time beauty has been defined as flawless and thin. Media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the advertising, entertainment, and news industries. Every teenager today wants to look like someone they see on TV, or in magazines, similarly even kids from grade schools have Brittany Spears and Christina Aguilera as role models highlighting the impact of the media on everyone especially youth with their raw impressionable minds. This is the basic argument presented in Susan Bordo's essay. Bordo discusses how strongly the media affects our self-images. The media has a huge influence over the thoughts, ideas, and opinions of today's…

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The mass media, television, internet, radio, newspapers, magazines and film is part of our everyday life. It is a powerful tool that provides us with information and entertainment. It reflects our society and it influences the way we think. The media has been criticized for its portrayal of women as objects whose value is measured in terms of their usefulness to others. It becomes difficult to see them as thinking, feeling, and capable people. Constantly portraying women in a highly sexualized way makes it more likely all women will be seen as sexual objects. This becomes a human right issue.…

    • 468 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tough Guise Gender

    • 553 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The media has allowed others to expect that all women must have a perfect body. Young girls are seeing these messages and trying to mold themselves into these bodies. After this assignment, I was able to reflect how the media’s portrayal affects women’s self-esteem. We strive for unreachable expectations that aren’t real. They cause harm to a young girl’s self-image. I was also able to realize that ads and popular songs objectify women in a disgusting manner. It is upsetting to realize how many young girls listen and see these types of ads and songs. It is horrible that so many people are actually taking these fake images into consideration and striving for that type of body. By watching these films and applying them to real life examples, it has allowed me to understand that these issues are greater than we…

    • 553 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There have been discussions by researchers regarding how the media portrays us to what is beauty and thereby causing a person to be dissatisfied with their appearance, their weight and eating habits. (Levine&Murnen, 2009). The researchers have revealed as to what is considered beauty for women and teenage girls, and what standard they are using that complements what the media has used to define the beauty. In turn, they will use those standards as a means for evaluating their own level and rating of beauty. These women and teenage girls will then seek to achieve those standards so that family, peers and even strangers will be pleased with their appearance. (O’Brien et al., 2009; Thompson, Heinberg, et al.,…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Many things can affect one’s body perception such as peers and family but most importantly the influences within the media can have the biggest affect on how one sees themselves. In some ways people can control the social factors that negatively affect their body perception. However, the mass media is every where and can be hard to avoid. Past research indicates that by the time a girl turns 6 she is already dissatisfied with her body image (Hayes & Tantleff,2010). The social standards of today emphasizes the need for women to be thin and blemish free, setting a physical expectation of beauty that is beyond impossible to reach ( Tiggemann, 2003). It is said that media is the most influential…

    • 1894 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis

    • 1668 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In her article “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder; Body Image; Skinny on a Weighty Issue”, Meredith Baker points out that almost ten million Americans, mostly teenage and college-aged girls, are currently dealing with anorexia or bulimia. She blames the fashion and entertainment industries for contributing to the problem by showcasing celebrities and models that are unusually skinny. Baker then goes on to share her own experience with an eating disorder and how she overcame it. She believes the United States should follow France’s example and ban stick-thin models from all advertisements. She cites the fact that cultures that value full-figured women have fewer eating disorders and hopes that media outlets in the United States will also begin to provide more realistic role models in advertising. In Walter Vandereyckens article, “Media Influences and Body Dissatisfaction in Young Women”, he states that, “the influence of society and culture is putting young female adolescents at risk for developing an eating disorder”(Vandereycken 5). He discusses the cause-effect relationship between the idolization of celebrities with slim figures and low self-esteem and poor body images in teens. He emphasizes that with such unhealthy behavior, it is inevitable that adolescents would take necessary steps to achieve slim figures. Vandereycken argues that the mass media affects young adults differently based on sociocultural backgrounds and predisposed…

    • 1668 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The issue lies with the negative effects on our youth when idealizing a body image that is unhealthy or at the very least non-existent. So, what do we do? That is a very hard question to answer and I can’t answer that for you. But, what I can do is inform you of the negative consequences of the images that our youth see on a daily basis. This paper was to argue the influences of negative body images and how advertisers are feeding our youth idealized body images and ruining our youth with untrue…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In this era, both men and women are obsessed with beauty and obtaining perfect bodies to be accepted by society. The majority of the population can be found on social sites or watches numerous hours of television a year, which contain advertisements and product placement. The media is responsible for creating the idea of what body image and beauty standards are accepted. Body image plays a very important role in our society in shaping our identities. Advertisements can have both benefits and damages depending on the illustration, model, and message. In the United States, the damages associated with negative body image is a significant problem as young adolescents, in an effort to adhere to the supposed criterion of beauty, consequently develop…

    • 219 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The message sent by the concept of media itself is that one’s self-worth can be measured rather accurately through the perception of others. According to James (2013), “Beauty plays a significant role in women’s lives, but throughout the use of ideals, women’s perceptions can be easily altered in high levels of insecurities” (p.2); thus, depicting how socially constructed beauty standards, determine the existence of one’s self-esteem. The most prominent way of influencing a woman’s body image, is through media representations and advertisements. Since the development of technology, in particular photo-shop and airbrushing, media has strengthened its grip on today’s society. Since social media has employed the idea of associating fame with likes, in their absence people feel worthless, empty, and not beautiful. Additionally, despite one’s whereabouts and country of birth, they still have to abide to that society’s standards. Advertisements have taken over the idealism of consumerism, and are using the dangerous vanity found in various cultures, to inflict upon women, how beauty “should” look like. As James (2013) stated in her article, “Through advertisements on television and in fashion magazines, the media has embedded ideal Western appearances on women” (p.2), therefore they must be blindly followed in order to be praised and valued. In the frame of…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first major or/One of the most important differences men and women run into in terms of body image is the disturbing pressure from social media networks on how they perceive an attractive body. The author contends, girls have become victimized by society’s hyper sexualization and are exposed to the idea that their value as female is closely related to their sexuality. (Heldman 65). In contrast advertising companies highly influence women over men because women spend more time obsessing over their physical attributes. Moreover the media exposes women as a sex character, which impairs their judgment towards their body image. For example author contends “it’s because U.S. residents are now being exposed to 3,000 to 5,000 advertisements a day- as many per year as those living a half a century ago would have seen in a lifetime” (Heldman 64). Also everyday men and women and bombarded with unrealistic images from media outlets that influence the human race to acquire unattainable bodies. In contrast men are not as influenced from television advertisements even though they spend more time watching television.…

    • 798 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The media contributes to what teenagers believe is “thin and beautiful.” This is why controlling what is in the media is vital to teenagers. Frances O’Connor, the author of Obesity and the Media, explains advertisers bombard viewers with approximately five hundred advertisements everyday, and at least ten percent of these advertisements are directly about beauty. This information shows that there are an overwhelming number of messages from the media about beauty. In addition, O’Connor later goes on to write that, advertisers expose viewers to the idea that being skinny and losing weight will make them happier. However, in the article, “Eating Disorders and the Media,” The Camp Recovery Center Health Group proves that long-term “regimented diet plans do not work”, the more people purchase diet products, the more the diet industry will keep pushing their false advertisements and slogans. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, “Nearly 70 percent of girls in grades five through 12 said magazine images influence their ideals of a perfect body.” This shows that the media, which can lead to many eating disorders, influences more…

    • 1306 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Body Image Standards

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Perhaps no time in history have body image standards had such an enormous impact on society. With today's mass media people can be subjected to thousands of images and messages daily, portraying the "ideal" body image. The people most often portrayed and effected by these messages are young women. Females can feel constant pressure to live up to these ideals which are most often unattainable. This pressure can cause detrimental physical and mental states. To fully understand this problem we must first ask ourselves, "Why?" Why has the female body been pushed to the forefront of society and media? It is undeniable that it is merely a marketing ploy. The beauty sector is a multibillion dollar a year industry. Companies such as Revlon, Cover Girl, Maybelline, L'Oreal insist that girls must look a certain way if they want to be anything. These corporations are only concerned with the bottom line. They take no responsibility for the negative image that they portray, in fact, that is what they thrive on. The worse self-image a woman has, the more beauty products she will buy to try and "improve" her looks. And there is no better way to make her think she is ugly than to subject her to thousands of unrealistic, airbrushed pictures of models to compare herself to. This way of thinking is further drilled into the female mind through women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Vogue and so on. Never do you find an article entitled "Big is Beautiful". More often you will find "How to lose 20 lb.. so your man will love you!" sprawled across the cover of the latest issue. Occasionally magazines will run a heart touching article about an ex-models fight with bulimia. They will often forget to mention, however, that the same model was portrayed as the pinnacle of health and beauty on the cover of last years April issue. The beauty industry and magazines are not the sole cause of the problem though, there is plenty of blame to go around. And so we look to…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Today, with the technology available, people are easily connected to the media whether it is for the news, the season premiere of an upcoming televised series, or the recent release of a video from a YouTube producer. Along with the mainstream media, people are flooded with hidden messages and exposed to unwanted materials. The modern American culture is based on the contents of media and is recycled through a process of demands and contributions. As a result, the American culture is exposed to a steady increase of sexualization within mainstream media, especially the hyper-sexualization of women (Task Force, 4). The American culture is exposing future generations to a world where sex is mainstream and popularized. Through the social learning…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "Girls don't just simply decide to hate their bodies. We teach them to." This quote by an unknown author illustrates the harsh reality of how media affects so many women. However, the battle with body image is not one only girls must fight; in fact, many men have grown insecurities due to society's standards of masculinity portrayed on television and in magazines. Mass media plays a big role in body image. First, media can influence the way women see themselves. Second, self-esteem issues in men can be a result of media, and, lastly, these effects on body image can cause damaging consequences.…

    • 1011 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics