The advertising industry does something right for a change.

[primroseburrows]

Go watch this, especially if you have little girls (Warning: could be somewhat triggery for people with eating/body image disorders).

Also This one, which actually had me close to tears.

This one really did make me cry. I hate when that happens.

ETA: Fixed duplicate link.

Comments

[newleaf31.livejournal.com]

Last semester I co-taught a class with the chair of the OT faculty called "Women, the Church, and Cultural and Ecclesial Diversity" (weighty title!), and I actually used that second short film in the class on the day that we talked about the way the media has co-opted the female body (and, by correlation, female sexuality) and turned it into a distorted canvas for advertising. There are also a series of documentaries that our media library had available, called "Killing Us Softly," made in the '70s, '80s, and '90s by a filmmaker called Jean Kilbourne. They're three really in-depth explorations of how the advertising industry constantly puts forth negative stereotypes of women, and how such images damage both women and men. I'd love to own these documentaries myself, but I haven't been able to find them for purchase or even for hire anywhere except university libraries. But if you ever get to see them, you totally should. Powerful stuff, incredibly powerful.

(I'm thinking you didn't mean this to happen, but the second one is the same link as the third one.)

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

I'd love to own these documentaries myself, but I haven't been able to find them for purchase or even for hire anywhere except university libraries. But if you ever get to see them, you totally should. Powerful stuff, incredibly powerful.

I'll look them up. Google Is My Friend. :) Also, fixed the link! I sent a link to the last video to i_am_a_hannah who looks like this(she's the lovely young woman in green on the far left of the row)yet sometimes still will speak disparagingly of aspects of her body she doesn't like:



Actually, ALL these women are really beautiful ladies (Daughters Hannah and Mary, DIL Trish, and Trish's gorgeous Mum Marilyn, L to R). None of them fit the pattern of what's fashionable because none are inclusively tall, slender, and fine-boned. But gorgeous? You betcha, every one of them. And not just because they're awesome. *loves* And even if they were ugly (which is SUCH a subjective description), would that make them, or me, or you, less? Uh-uh. I have to remember that myself sometime when I look in the mirror and expect to see twenty-four and find forty-six staring me in the, um. Face.

I've been thinking more and more about how our very selves are formed very young and really would love to do something to help change the way children are taught to view themselves, and by extension other people. I'm a victim survivor of bullying, so I'm really sensitive to pressures that kids Be "Normal", whatever that is. And sometimes "Normal" is impossible to achieve without a. Photoshop, b. Surgery, an c. Tons of money. And even with all those, there's really no such thing. :/

[patchfire.livejournal.com]

Dear god your kids are growing up. Hannah looks so much older than I remember her looking!

Also, if you saw the three of them - Hannah, Mary, and Trish - and didn't know their ages, it would be hard to know who was oldest, etc.