Power
If you google the word power it produces 157,000,000 hits, power has so many definitions that to say something about each one would take days. The most relevant to this course is media power, from large production companies creating blockbuster movies to advertisers telling what to buy.
The media for years has told us that if we buy this, look like this and have this job then you’ll have made it in society and you’re a success, but this is just an ideology. For a lot of people and in this economic crash the majority of people just can’t afford to live the picturesque lifestyles shown in advertising. This can lead to debt with people living outside their means, depression and many other unwanted problems.
One that has plagued the modeling world for years is eating disorders, with supermodels and fashion labels promoting (in a way) super skinny as being the best way to look it led to girls of all ages falling victim to anorexia and bulimia. A few years ago when size zero became an issue when a few models died of eating disorders. Modeling agencies were asked to only use models above a certain size, but stick thin models are still used on the catwalk to promote fashion designers. Cindy Crawford has recently urged women not to buy magazines with skinny models on the front in protest of size zero saying that women have the “power” to change body image stereotypes.
The clip below is an anti size zero campaign from MTV
There aren’t many women out there who haven’t struggled with the way they look at some point in their life, and this is down to the way the media shows women as stick thin, beautiful and successful.
