Saturday, 24 March 2012

The true definition of beauty? Manipulation and the Media.

Beauty strives to unveil itself in many shapes and forms. Life is full of beauty and each person has their own unique definition. Modern day media primarily focuses on exterior 'beauty', achieved through powder and plastic. In todays lecture, we watched a haunting video of a young woman transform from a plain, but not unattractive woman to an absolutely stunning, would-be Hollywood superstar. This may seem harmless on the surface – I mean, actors and newsreaders have their face and hair done before showtime, right?  I highly recommend you watch the video. Not only do they completely mask her in assorted pencils, shadows and creams, but in the end – she is still not good enough. After the photo for the ad campaign is taken, they continue to warp and transform her – until she is completely unrecognisable from her true self. They even feel her neck and eyes are not the right shape. What is this saying to girls and women in general? Is digital manipulation the only way to be considered beautiful? 


 For the less shallow of us, we may gaze at a stereotypical sunset or mountaintop view and believe we have discovered true beauty.  Of course, many can misinterpret the term ‘beauty’ to mean purely vision - things that possess the right colours, shades, contours and of course legs and cleavage. How then, may I ask, should a blind person interpret beauty? Are they simply devoid of all possible splendour? Denied of the world's magnificence? If one is blind, the other senses are amplified, therefore opening up the mind's doors to let in sound, smell, taste and feel. I always aim to discover these truer kinds of beauty in everyday life. Simple things like a genuine warm smile that reflects the kindness in a persons eyes, basking in the sun's blissful rays or the way running warm water over the body seems to wash away a lifetime of sins. 

As far as sound and radio is concerned, beauty for me, can be found in something as blatant as the voices of Anthony Kiedis or Angus and Julia Stone. It may be disguised in the voice of Kurt Cobain, surrounded by rhythmic percussion and entrancing guitar solos. However, I have also found beautiful sounds in unexpected places, like being awoken by the haunting Islamic call to prayer that echoes around the town while in Muslim places like Bosnia or Indonesia. Sometimes, I will go to sleep listening to the waves crashing its unruly rebellion on the sand. Even on the street, the innocent laughter of children and the clicking of a forgotten grandparents walking stick remind me of what was and what is to come. Music is the blind man's guide to beauty, don't underestimate its power to uplift the mind and harmonise the soul.

Photographs of beautiful, desirable women plastered in our magazines can have a huge negative affect on the readers, especially young women. How can we ever become beautiful enough if we are to compare ourselves to something that is not even real? That has been digitally manipulated? Flipping through a fashion magazine, for me, is a never ending chapter of self-hate, knowing I will never be as good as those beautiful women. It has depressing affects on a young woman's self-worth, and it is something that needs to be addressed in the media today.



No comments:

Post a Comment