Social Change Video (rough draft)

Getting the Right Reps

I can assure you that if you looked at any magazine, billboard, clothing commercial, or even at red carpet events, you wouldn’t be able to spot a woman who looked like your mother, next door neighbour, teacher, or the lady behind you at the super market.  Instead you’d find a stick thin woman, but with someone excellent assets, and with pounds of makeup.  Of course that woman is the one you, a teenage, or just in general, a girl, should look up to and aspire to be like: thin, pretty, and perfect.  Of course, that’s what society tells you to do because all the women in the media look like that and you should too (if you want to fit in, which of course you do: you’re a girl!) 

            These women of the media are technically women, but are they really with all the airbrushing, PhotoShopping, enhanced, and slimmed down they go through?  Since they're setting the ideals of beauty and how women should look like, they make all other women look bad and sub-par.  Everyone believes that these women are the real women of the world and sets their standards at the Kate Moss and Megan Fox level.  I want women, particularly girls, to know that just because they don’t look like supermodels, doesn’t mean they’re not beautiful.  By creating a YouTube video, I will be able to project my idea to the Internet that will hopefully be able to illuminate this misrepresentation of women.  The Internet billions of users a day and would be the most prudent to getting my message across to as many people as possible.

            By making a YouTube video, I think this will be the most effective medium for me as I have a passionate and powerful voice.  For me, I can more easily get my point across through diction rather than the written word.  And since YouTube is public, anyone would be able to hear what I have to say.  I have personal experience with the negative effects of the misrepresentation and will be able to use my ethos and pathos to have people understand how serious this situation is.  In addition to this, I will use logos by utilizing all of the facts and statistics I have about suicides, depression rates, and eating disorder rates all due to poor self-image. 

            Before actually making my video, I will have all of my points and facts written out and well practised so as to make my video as concise and clear as possible.  My goal is to utilize all my modes of persuasion through my video and for people to become aware of this situation.  In my video, I will use several editing techniques like putting different statistics on screen and switching to quotes so as to visually aide my audiences rather than them just looking at me and having to take my word for it.

Toulmin Analysis of Ethos Blog

The major claims of my previous blog were that women are being misrepresented in the media and according to the media, there is a very specific way a woman must look in order to be considered beautiful.  There are impossibly high standards that women must adhere to.

My data was lacking, and even though I included a quote from Tina Fey's autobiography, some wouldn't consider that true data as it is an interpretation of something (though as a woman, everything she said is so true and accurate- but hey, that's just me).  In my rough draft I will include statistics of teenage girl suicides and further information about the eating disorders that plague America's youth.

My warrant is that because the women that are in the media don't actually show real women, teenagers and older women have self-esteem issues and this lack of confidence causes suicide, mental illness, and eating disorders.

A rebuttal to my argument could be that because the women shown in magazines, on TV, and in the movies are beautiful, thin, and flawless, that this has girls have a goal to aspire to look like.  For example, if one girl admires Keira Knightly for her thin stature, then that might "inspire" her to lose weight by eating less or eating healthier.  Some might think that is a positive thing to want to lose weight.  These women might also make girls want to put a lot of time into their appearances by getting a haircut, get nicer clothes, etc.

My qualifiers are that I am a teenage girl who is a target of this representation.  I am constantly exposed to this and its always a slap in the face.  I've been through the negative effects of this and I know what its likfe and this makes me a credible source.

My backing is facts about this will be the poll I took of BMHS girls about how compared to celebrities and models, if they felt inferior/not as beautiful.

Social Change Project Audience Brainstorming

Possible Audiences

BMHS

CGS students

High school students in general

The Internet (YouTube, Tumblr, FaceBook)

Local Newspapers (The Darien Times for instance)

The Fashion Industry (mostly Victoria’s Secret)

Women

Narrowing it Down

High School Students (specifically girls)

This misrepresentation of women is targeted at me.  Teenage girls, in high school and in college are the ones being most affected.  Young women get hit the hardest by this false image of women and they need to be illuminated about what its doing and why it needs to stop.  People, not just girls, are exposed to this constantly, across the world and since its so common, its become okay, no questions asked.

YouTube

The Internet is a wonderful place to display your opinions and thoughts.  YouTube is even better because of the video sharing and how quickly things can spread across the Internet, and therefore, across the world.  YouTube is an open field where literally anything can be posted or said or done.  Not only is it free, but it opens a much broader range of people that are able to view than just one place, like one school for example.  So instead of just having a very narrow range of people hear my thoughts, I could have the entire Internet listening to me.

The Media

I’ve been published in the Darien Times more than once and I think I might be able to do it again.  By being published in a newspaper, there is a much wider audience to view my idea, specifically mostly adults and not just teenagers who, in my opinion, are the main audience of this issue.  My goal is to get as many people thinking about this issue as possible and spread it like wild fire.

I think that my best bet is to post my idea as a video to YouTube. I'm fairly good at speaking and I know that I will be able to get my idea across much better if I'm able to speak it.  People then could hear the passion in my voice, which I think is critical to any argument.  YouTube is also a very public site that is visited constantly.  And because it's the 21st century, posting the link to my video on any social media site or emailing it to family and friends is a good way to get as many views as possible and to spread the word.

Why Doesn't Victoria's Secret Represent Me

You’ve probably noticed that I, Sophia E. Fredo, am generally average.  I am slightly taller than average, of a normal weight, and not too special in the looks department (except for my cheekbones; those things could cut glass).  But in all seriousness, the media do not value the qualities of the average woman. While I embrace girls with brains and character, who display honesty and are trusting and loyal, the media instead display a totally different ethos – one dominated by sexuality and completely superficial qualities.  Will you find someone similar to me in a clothes catalogue, or seductively posing on a highway billboard? No, you’d find a Megan Fox or Victoria’s Secret Angel type instead.  But why them and not me when I’m the type that these products are thrust at.  This misrepresentation of women in the media is highly unfair to girls all over the world and affects all girls.  I am a young woman, and I am a target of this.  This is happening to me and I am exposed to this constantly, as are millions of girls across the world.  This misrepresentation of women in the media sets unbelievably high standards for women to adhere to.  No one (normal) could possibly look like a Victoria’s Secret model, unless they are in fact a Victoria’s Secret model.

Tina Fey, in her autobiography Bossypants, said, “…I think the first real change in women’s body image came when J-Lo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and J-Lo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful.  Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.” (Fey)
Though Fey’s writing is hilarious, it’s also quite accurate.  Fey also makes a good point: these women aren’t actually women.  They’re Photo shopped, airbrushed, enhanced, and slimmed down versions of real people.  So we have the .05% of what women look like setting the ideals of beauty and “perfection.”  This misrepresentation, or should I say, MISSrepresentation, doesn’t set a good model (no pun intended) for young girls and teenagers, who are the ones most affected by this.  This can lead to low self-esteem, anorexia, bulimia, depression, and even suicide.  In middle school, I was anorexic and depressed and this is exactly why I hated myself: because I didn’t think I was pretty enough, all because a stick slim model with great boobs made me look bad. This misrepresentation really does hit home for girls everywhere, especially for me, and if you’re a girl, I’m certain that you haven’t felt good enough or beautiful enough after flipping through Teen Vogue or watching celebrities on TV.           My real goal in this isn’t to rant and annoy the hell out of you, but to illuminate the fact that women are being shown in ways that don’t really show women.  I’d want models who are average people to set the standard for clothing sizes, strut on the runway, and work it at Victoria’s Secret.  After all, if a woman is airbrushed, Photo shopped, slimmed down, and enhanced, is she really a woman at all?

A Passionate Feminist's Rant

If there is one thing that gets under my skin, its the misrepresentation of women in the media.  In May, Kraft Foods Group released an advertisement depicting a man lying sensually (that is to say, naked) on a picnic blanket promoting a new salad dressing.  Unfortunately for Kraft, this ad received a lot of negative and angry responses.  Parents, particularly mothers, found this to be extremely vulgar and offensive.  Many thought that Kraft was trying to sell something other than salad dressing.  Through all of the negative comments received, I couldn't help but yelling at my computer screen: Of course this would bother you! When its a man depicted sexually in an ad, but when its a woman, well full speed ahead!"  Women have been shown in similar lights (and even more erotic than this) for decades and no one's really had any vendettas against those.  But why?  Certainly women across the globe would be shocked by the amount of skin of women that ads can get away with showing.  Not only is this selling whatever product is being shown, but its also selling the fact that the women, too, are for sale (for men to buy).  In my mind this relates to the idea that women are animals and savage and need to be controlled, an idea that is very obvious is Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines."

But back to my question, WHY ON EARTH IS IT OKAY FOR WOMEN TO POSE SENSUALLY, BUT FOR MEN, ITS A SCANDAL?  And completely ironically, its typically frowned upon for women to breast-feed in public, but it's alright to expose 90% of a Victoria's Secret Angel's decolletagé on a 20x20 foot billboard?  Why are you so offended by your own anatomy when it's thrown carelessly all around you?  And doesn't that make you a bit of a hypocrite to say how vulgar is it to display your body in public when the media's been doing it for decades and you've never had a problem with that before.  But I got to give props to Kraft for using a sexy man rather than a sexy lady in their ad.  And good for them, when most of their products are bought by women, so why not appeal to the ladies?  After all, they're the ones, who, according to you, are supposed to do the shopping.

**If you're further interested in this topic, there's an incredible documentary called MISSrepresentation, wonderfully free to view on YouTube, to which I thank for the illumination on this issue.**

To Be Cute, or to Have Money

Sentence Imitation

From Jamaica Kincaid's, A Small Place “And so you can imagine how I felt when, one day, in Antigua, standing on Market Street, looking up one way and down the other, I asked myself: Is the Antigua I see before me, self-rules, a worse place than what it was when it was dominated by the bad-minded English and all the bad-minded things they brought with them? How did Antigua get to such a state that I would have to ask myself this? For the answer on every Antiguan’s lips to the question “What is going on here now?” is “The government is corrupt. Them are thief, them are big thief.” Imagine, then, the bitterness and the shame in me as I tell you this.” (Kincaid 41)

And so you can imagine how I felt when, one day, at the Oyster Festival, standing by the dress racks, looking from one cute dress to another, I asked myself: Do I really need to spend, money, MY hard-earned money, on a $60 dress that I’ll probably never wear? How did I even decide that I wanted it? Is it because Caroline told me it’d look so cute on me? For the answer on my lips was, “Of course it is! Why else would I buy such a dress? All I wanna do is look cute.”  Imagine, then, my despair between wanting to look super cute and wanting to have money.