Weighting for Change, Part 2

Last week I talked about my frustration with the media industry focusing on body image more than real news. Along the same vein, I explore a little bit about the media’s role in promoting a beauty ideal.

I was mindlessly scrolling through tumblr one day, when a flash caught my attention and demanded a second look. I scrolled my page up a bit until I found it, an image that made my stomach and jaw drop. The image, right of the text, stirred many emotions inside of me. After being teased for years about my weight in elementary and middle school, I was moved with shock, anger, bitterness, and unease. I quickly read the small text attached to the picture:

For my series, Wait Watchers, I set up a camera in a heavy-traffic, public area and take hundreds of photographs as I perform mundane, everyday tasks as people pass by me. I then examine the images to see if any of the passersby had a critical or questioning element in their face or in their body language.

Intrigued I followed a link to the photographer’s personal website. Included was a stirring group of images similar to the first one. As I explored the website, I learned more about this artist, Haley Morris-Cafiero.

I consider my photographs a social experiment and I travel the world in an attempt to photograph the reactions of a diverse pool of passersby. I seek out places that are beautifully lit, allow for an interesting composition and, if possible, set up a scene that references ideal feminine beauty and societal expectations.

It wasn’t until recently that I was interested in this sociological ideal feminine beauty.

Originally characterized by Naomi Wolf, the Beauty Myth is the increased social power, prominence, and expected adherence to standards of physical beauty. Research has found that this socially constructed ideology is directly related to our media consumption.

There have been numerous studies conducted on the effects of such saturated and narrow media. In one study only two percent of women surveyed in ten countries around the world consider themselves beautiful. Another five percent were comfortable describing themselves as pretty and nine percent as attractive.

Studies into the psychological processing of advertisements among women have proved that there are two effects in motion. First, there’s and assimilation or associating one’s self with the model in the media, and then self-discrepancy which is comparing one’s self to the media. This has invariably led to exponential growth in the number of women developing body image dissatisfaction, anorexia, bulimia and depression.

I put the camera on a tripod, bench or with an assistant, in full view of the by-passing gazer, set the focus and exposure and take hundreds of photographs. The images capture the gazer in a Cartier-Bresson, microsecond moment where the shutter, the scene, my actions and their body language align and are presented to the viewer. While I do not know what they are thinking, the gazer appears to be visually troubled that I am in front of them.

After scrolling through the images and reading Morris-Cafiero’s artist statement, I realized the true nature of her art wasn’t to expose stranger’s judgment, but a social statement on the prevailing pressure to conform. When someone deviates from the norm, they’re ridiculed, labeled and used as someone’s excuse to briefly feel better about themselves.

What kills me are arbitrary “advancements” in media that don’t necessary address the issue. Dove for example has reinvented itself in the past decade by featuring “real” women who deviate from the norm of models, however there’s still a disconnect when they suggest you need to buy Dove products to feel great in your own skin. It’s not the content of the media; it’s the ideology behind it.

If we keep moving in the trend of concentrating on typically Eurocentric, increasingly narrow ideal, we’ll eventually start considering Barbie a deviant from the ideal. I don’t necessarily know how to fix the ideology behind it, but I don’t think deviants from the norm hurt the cause. While the under-layers of Miss America may not be the best example, I’m a huge fan of the diversification with Miss New York winning. Deviants have the most fun, and eventually the more and more deviants who breakdown the norm, the closer we’ll truly be to “real.”

What do you think? Where could we improve in areas that typically promote the beauty ideal? Are there any other outlets of media that are trying to promote positive body image like Dove? Just want to throw your two-cents or a shoutout? Go for it!