There are no ugly women only poor women

Most of the times we believe our ideas are our own ideas. We believe they belong to us. But once in a while, we realize that what we have been thinking for a long time is not actually ours but from everybody else. It’s the same thought that your friend, your neighbor or you classmate has.

What’s the reason for us to first hate a pair shoes or a purse when we first see it and then, after seeing it hundreds of times, start to loving it and wanting to have one? Is Pop Culture making us believe beautiful women are related with wearing high heels and make up or having, big boobs and long hair? Since when did we start to “praise” what sometimes turns into artificial women? Plastic Women? Since when did we start to believe that “Everyone accepts plastic? Are these behaviors the effects of Pop Culture?

The picture above is an advertisement of the First Season of a series named Dr. 90210. When I see this image the emotions I feel are, first, envy and then curiosity. Not only do I envy the woman’s great body but what she is living at the exact instance she is being photographed. She seems so relaxed and to have such an easy lifestyle that it is somehow saying, that the only thing you need in life is a great body… and if you don’t have a great body, then, enough money to buy one.

This image is clearly directed to teenagers and young adults who enjoy media and are immerse in pop culture. In other words, it is focused on people who are likely to watch this series. Evidently, not all the people who watch this show are teenagers or young adults, but they definitely make the vast majority of its audience and they, most likely than not, share a taste for “pop culture”.

When I see this type of advertisement, the first thing that comes to my mind is a day when my classmates and I were in our Philosophy class and my teacher asked us to define the concept of beauty. Many said that the “beautifulness” of something was in the eyes of the person looking at the object and not in the object itself. However, when we started discussing about the beauty of women there was one girl who raised her hand and said: “There are no ugly women just poor women”.

Many of my friends alleged it was the most stupid affirmation ever and I didn’t know what to say. “Stupid” was not the word I would use to describe the comment. The affirmation itself was neither stupid nor ridiculous, as a matter of fact it was so truthful that it was hard to admit it, but the whole background it was based on was, in fact, stupid.

The characteristics of the women in the advertisement are usually the ones that define a woman as “pretty”. When a girl sees an advertisement like this, she would probably say “I want that body” and since that body she wants is on the cover of a series related to plastic surgery, she is probably going to say, “If I get plastic surgery, I’ll have that body”. But this is not for free. It is simply unthinkable to get a plastic surgery without spending a couple of thousand dollars on it, or to have a nice body without spending a couple of hundred dollars a year on a gym membership, just to name a few examples other than the one of the picture.

But sometimes having a “nice body” goes beyond just “looking pretty”. Most of the times are related with success, with luxuries and with money. Is it really probable that a “poor” woman would be lying on a bench while taking the sun, enjoying a pool and looking so good while doing so? (Not to mention that this woman is supposed to be in Beverly Hills) No, it’s not.

Furthermore, the woman on the picture doesn’t look really human… She looks more like a Barbie, yes… like a plastic doll. Since when do we like plastic so much? Is it because it’s so easy to manage? Or maybe because it helps to se images as a man would see them, and men want to see women as objects. They say an image says more than one thousand words. Well… maybe a video says more than one thousand images and this is why I want to show the following video:

The previous video was the propaganda for a series launched in Colombia about five years ago. The title of the series was “Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso” (There is no paradise without big boobs). I believe the objectification of women and the “plastic women” style, that’s being so popular lately, couldn’t be more evident. Both, the picture of the American Series and the Video of the Colombian telenovela, want to depict women as objects and they want to make women believe everything they need to have a great body is plastic surgery and as a recompense for their investment they’ll have a “dream” life with cars, mansions, spas, jewels and other luxuries.

When I say investment I really mean it. There are thousands, if not millions of women, who pay millions of dollars every year on plastic surgery. They want to become dolls because, in a way, they’ll have the life they have always wanted to have. It’s like a cycle; you need money to become pretty, but once you are pretty (or plastic looking) you’ll get a rich husband (in the context of the video this “rich husband” is 90% likely to be a drug dealer) who is going to give you all the money you need to continue looking pretty, and so on, and so on. You just need to look good and be quiet or… object like.

The video clearly shows that the women should not only look as dolls, but they should also act as dolls. Isn’t this the same thing the advertisement of the 90210 series is telling us? They are both stating that women should be there just to be looked at and as a reward they’ll have luxuries.

It seems that no matter where we look, no matter where we live, no matter who we are, pop culture is always going to be there. It is always going to be part of our lives and it seems it is always telling us “pretty women are this way and they most spend thousands of dollars a year to be that way”. At least this is what this advertisement is trying to make us believe.

_____________________________________________________________

Sources:

Elena. “ScienceDaily: Makeover Shows Correspond With Increased Body Anxiety”. http://aseachange.com/blog-illusionists/2009/01/sciencedaily-makeover-shows-correspond-with-increased-body-anxiety/. 26 Jan. 2009. Web. 19 September 2011.

“Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso Intro Telenovelas Caracol TV”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiblDubSvnk&feature=related. 2 Nov. 2010. Web. 20 September 2011.