If media generated pressure on women (and men) to strive for slimmer and slimmer physiques is so pervasive and all-powerful, then why are rates of obesity steadily increasing. I recently read a study that claimed 35% of American children--the very audience that advertisements like this one are purported to influence--are medically obese. The logic doesn't work out. Weird looking models airbrushed to appear even more freakish is not near the national threat that pizza rolls, couches, and Angus burgers are.
I realize anorexia and bulimia are problems, especially within teenage girl populations, but advertising is not the cause. Why would a picture of some model drive a teenage girl to stick an index finger down her throat when Lindsay, the coolest girl in her sophomore class, has love handles? I think positions like that offered in the article are superfluous and distracting.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Meaning
Meaning is a product, and often a commodity. Meaning is a representation and representations are susceptible to strategy. Usually, the strategy is intentionally enacted, but it can be the result of circumstance as well.
I assert that the photo containing the vulture and the dying girl would not have garnered a Pulitzer Prize, nor have reached the cultural status it did, had the photographer saved the girl. The meaning the photo achieved goes beyond the actual girl. The larger narrative of the photo is famine, not this girl's life. It is that large narrative that gives the photo power. Had the photographer saved the girl, the latter narrative would have taken precedence, thereby nullifying the meaning of greater significance. Without closure in the story concerning the actual girl's fate, however, viewers face dissonance that is difficult to reconcile. It is precisely this dissonance--and viewers difficulty with it--that allows the photo to generate the emotional response it does. This emotional response has been exploited by charitable organizations for years, with this particular image, as well as others.
I assert that the photo containing the vulture and the dying girl would not have garnered a Pulitzer Prize, nor have reached the cultural status it did, had the photographer saved the girl. The meaning the photo achieved goes beyond the actual girl. The larger narrative of the photo is famine, not this girl's life. It is that large narrative that gives the photo power. Had the photographer saved the girl, the latter narrative would have taken precedence, thereby nullifying the meaning of greater significance. Without closure in the story concerning the actual girl's fate, however, viewers face dissonance that is difficult to reconcile. It is precisely this dissonance--and viewers difficulty with it--that allows the photo to generate the emotional response it does. This emotional response has been exploited by charitable organizations for years, with this particular image, as well as others.
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