Magazine Article Evaluation - Collin

For my final analysis of the different men’s magazine such as: FHM, Maxim, Men’s Health, and Men’s Fitness, I have come to conclusion that there are only four categories in men’s magazines that repeat which are sex, food, gadgets, and creating the perfect body. But the two that stand out significantly are creating the perfect body and sex, and one thing that I noticed is that these two themes are linked to one another in the articles and the advertisements. In all the men’s magazines sex, although not always explicitly advertised, was shown with images of extremely attractive females sensually touching or holding very fit or buff handsome men. From the data I collected in my surveys the results show that these images of “perfect” people have an effect on the way the male readers and how they view their selves no matter how satisfied they might say they are with their appearance. It is these images that drive men and the readers of these magazines to want to be the men in the advertisements and in the media, and more specifically can reinforce the Adonis Complex. Most of the advertisements in men’s magazines take advantage of this by trying to sell the quickest and most effective new ways to bulk up with powders, drinks, and/or pills. The people selling these products in the advertisements are used to represent the end results/effectiveness of the product which also feeds the drive for male body perfection/the Adonis Complex. By the way things look in the media and from the results of my survey it seems that if the images in the media continue on its path of depicting a world of “idolized flawless beings,” then the issues of negative self image that are still somewhat deeply hidden within men might start to start to surface progressively. The Adonis Complex might just be the tip of the ice berg.

Magazine Citations - Collin

Magazine Citations

“Are You Ready?” Men’s Health December 2009: 89

Belley, Robert. “Get Jacked Like a Gymnast.” Men’s Fitness December 2009: 20-21

Burroughs, Augusten. “Eat Like a Man, Lose Weight Like a Woman” Men’s Health December 2009: 64

Court, Ben. “Q: What Do I Need to Create a Perfect Home Gym?” Men’s Health December 2009: 26

“Don’t be this Guy!” Men’s Fitness December 2009: 26

“Don’t Just Believe…Become!” Men’s Fitness December 2009: 84-85

“Good barbers guide” FHM December 2009: 109

Hartman, Bill. “Work Your Buns Off” Men’s Health December 2009: 112-114

“Hot spot. Cool hair” FHM December 2009: 32

“Joop! Thrill” FHM December 2009: 20

“Le Male” FHM December 2009: 17

Pinto, Mark. “Belly Off! Club” Men’s Health December 2009: 62

“Sex Education For Me?” Men’s Fitness December 2009: 114

Smith, Jim. “One Workout, Twice the Results” Men’s Fitness December 2009: 103-118

“Target Unwanted Fat” FHM December 2009:107

“The Winner is…” Men’s Fitness December 2009: 32

Thieme, Trevor. “Build Muscle Fast” Men’s Health December 2009: 48-50

“Winter Grooming Guide” Men’s Health December 2009: 76

Endless Journey of Perfection - Collin

As it turns out, even some of the fittest of bodies still think their lacking. A study of more than 800 professional athletes showed that they thought their bodies were insufficiently muscular. The term for this train of thought is called the Adonis Complex. The curious aspect of this study was that muscle, although looking effective, doesn’t always make equal use in performance and still athletes feel the need to be bulkier and more muscular. The problem might be stemming from the athletes comparing themselves to other athletes that have irregularly muscular bodies from the use of steroids, and/or the problem might come from an evolutionary standpoint where men need to look muscular, and the images of muscular men in the media are reinforcing the Adonis Complex.

Derbyshire, David. " Men hooked on having a perfect body: Films, adverts and magazines are making even the fittest athletes feel inadequate about themselves, reports ". Telegraph.co.uk. 01 Dec 2009 .

Magazine Article Evaluation- Chelsea

After evaluating twenty five magazine articles from a variety of different magazines, such as: Self, Cosmopolitan, Complete Woman and Women’s health, there is an obvious trend with how the media tries to target women and their bodies. The most obvious way they promote weight loss and beauty is through unrealistic images of women that are stick thin with perfect bone structure. Most women understand that the pictures shown in magazines have been photo shopped and still they try to compare themselves to models. The real victims of advertising are adolescent girls because the media plays a significant role in the way young girls feel about themselves. Advertisements are significant to adolescent girls as they begin to notice to society’s beauty standards. Magazine advertisements reinforce a beautiful and thin body ideal, and research indicates that models in magazines are the standard to which many adolescent girls hold themselves when picturing the ideal body. This is disturbing in many ways, because it can lead to body image dissatisfaction. Body image dissatisfaction occurs when females become unhappy with their appearance, specifically their weight. It encourages adolescent girls to strive for an unrealistically thin and unhealthy body ideal. Since advertisements make up almost half of the space in teen girl magazines, they can be very influential. Many of these ads depict women as beautiful, thin, and sexy. If young girls see these same images over and over, they may begin to think that they too should be beautiful, thin, and sexy to meet society’s beauty standards. The trend of increasing body image dissatisfaction is alarming because it can lead to more serious disorders, such as depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and even drug use more common effects of body dissatisfaction, such as excessive dieting and low self- esteem are now common among middle school girls (6th-8th grade). In the past, these issues were almost exclusively a problem for high school and college females. Even worse, 80% of 10-yearold girls have actually tried dieting. It seems that advertisements in teen magazines are now affecting younger girls as well. Since teen magazines account for more than one half of all reported adolescent reading, advertisements in these magazines may be one source of the body image dissatisfaction.


Citations:

Englis, B.G., Solomon, M.R., & Ashmore, R.D. (2001) Beauty before the eyes of the
aaaaaabeholder: The cultural encoding of beauty types in magazine advertising and music aaaaaatelevision. Journal of Advertising, 23 (2), 49-65.

Evans, E., Rutberg, J., Sather, C, & Turner, C. (2004). Content analysis of
aaaaacontemporary teen magazines for adolescent females. Youth and Society, 23, 99-
aaaaa120.

Frost, L. (2001). Young women and the body: A feminist sociology. New York:aaaaaPalgrave.

Magazine Citations- Chelsea

Magazine Citations
Citation: "vol 247 no.4." Cosmopolitan October 2009: 1. Print

Citation: "vol 247 no.4." Cosmopolitan October 2009: 1. Print

Citation: "Marie Claire ." Hearst magazines October 2009: 1. Print.

Citation: Fox, Lauren . "How I went from size 6 to size 2." Complete Woman Feb-March 2010: 1. Print.

Citation: Barry, Joanna. "Is your body Normal? ." Complete Woman Feb-March 2010: 2. Print

Citation: James-Enger, Kelly. "Lose Weight While you eat ." Complete Woman Feb-March 2010: 2. Print.

Citation: "Undercover Goddess." Complete Woman Feb-March 2010: 2. Print.

Citation: "Want to lose weight?." Complete Woman Feb-March 2010: 1. Print.

Citation: "Your Hot NEW Body is just a click away ." Complete Woman Feb-March 2010: 1. Print.

Citation: "Lose your belly ." Complete Woman Feb-March 2010: 1. Print.

Citation: "Get the body you want in half the time ." Complete Woman Feb-March 2010: 1. Print.

Citation: "Sculpting secret." Womens health December 2009: 1. Print.

Citation: Womens health December 2009: 1. Print.

Citation: "Spin your way Slim ." Self December 2009: 1. Print.

Dove Self Esteem Fund- Chelsea

This video shows that almost 100 percent of the time the media uses technology to enhance the way someone looks.

Techno Music Video on Body Image - Collin

I'm a pretty big fan of a group called Daft Punk, and as I was looking up some of their older songs on youtube.com I saw a video that I thought would be good to post on the blog. The link is at the bottom of this post or you can look up "The Prime Time of Your Life" by Daft Punk. But it's the real video that is relevant so don't watch any with custom videos or wallpapers.
The video starts out with a girl watching television and everyone on the television is a skeleton. Then, the camera pans around and shows you pictures of the girl standing next to skeletons. The picture turns into a live scene of the girl at the beach with the skeletons playing. A little further into the video you see that she has gained wait and is still living with skeletons. As the girl walks into the bathroom, she slides open a drawer to find a razor. Just a little warning for the squeamish: It might be a little nauseating but there's no blood. You have to see the rest of the video to make sense of it, but I think Daft Punk did a great job with showing the seriousness of how some people have a really difficult time with the way they view their body image even at childhood to adolescence.

Daft Punk "The Prime Time of Your Life"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUdNxuHr4Vc&feature=channel

Is being healthy considered overweight?- Chelsea

In mid October twenty-three year old, Filippa Hamilton who was a model that worked for Ralph Lauren was under fire for her weight. She was 5'10 and weighed 120 pounds was clearly more full-bodied than the photoshopped girl we see in the advertisement. Though Hamilton has modeled for Ralph Lauren since she was 15, the company let her go "as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under her contract with us." But the story gets worse: Hamilton says she was let go because she'd become too fat to model for them. She claimed that they fired her because they said she was overweight and that she couldn't fit into their clothes anymore.

Models get fired and are overlooked all the time for being what the industry unreasonably considers to be overweight. Eating disorders are not only common among models, but they're also common among the women and young girls who emulate them. I am happy to see that Hamilton has come forward, and wish more models and celebrities would do the same. It's awesome and empowering when stars admit they've been photoshopped for an ad or movie poster and say how dissatisfied they are about it. With foreign countries banning underweight models from their fashion weeks, and the increasing presence of plus size models in women's magazines, we wish the unhealthy representation and falsified depiction of models and women would come to an end entirely. Do you think the day will ever come?

The current emphasis on excessive thinness for women is the one of the clearest examples of advertisements power to influence us, both culturally and individually. Advertising is not solely to blame for thiness, but there is no aspect more evasive and persuasive then advertising.

Citation: "Ralph Lauren's Ridiculous Photoshop; More Ridiculous Rage ." Jezebel 10/7/2009: 1. Web. 6 Dec 2009. .

I'm Looking at the Attractive Person in the Mirror - Collin

Studies show that looks make a difference, so is it so strange why people want to look attractive? Biases with beauty can be exhibited in classrooms, the workplace, and nearly all social situations. But do “beautiful people” look in the mirror the same way everybody else does? Why not?! The same pressures of the media and its near impossible standards of beauty sit on the shoulders of everyone that is insecure about their looks. A study shows that for attractive people it might even be more so. Attractive people often have low self-esteem because they disbelieve the praise of their work efforts to be from their skills and solely from their beauty.

Citation: Fox, Kate. "Mirror, mirror: A summary of research findings on body image". Social Issues Research Centre. 30 Nov 2009 .

G.I. Joe Already the Next Barbie - Collin

Action figures are boy’s equivalent of Barbie, and like Barbie, the physical dimensions of action figures have now reached sizes that are near physically impossible. It’s not surprising that there has been a large increase in male body and health care products in the last few years. Studies showed that the pressures for females to go down in size aren’t that different from males trying to go up in size. Men and teens will try to achieve their goal figure by any means including the use of anabolic steroids or even suppressed eating. Body dissatisfaction can be very harmful because of its correlation with depression. As the media continues to promote the perfect body, it seems that people will continue to hunt and try and achieve the perfect body. This could lead to an even greater up rise in the number of men, teens, and boys with eating disorders and depression.

Citation: Poncelet, Barbara. "Male Body Image: Your Son and His Body". About.com. 30 Nov 2009 .

The Clash Between Eastern and Western Body Image - Collin

A study of American, European and Asian men (Taiwanese and Chinese) showed that the Eastern and Western ideas of what the perfect body for a woman would be were very different. Using a computer program to add and subtract muscle mass to images of male bodies, Americans and Europeans tended to bulk up the images with roughly 20 to 30 pounds of muscle. In contrast, the Asian men usually added only about 5 pounds of muscle. This study showed that Asian men were less dissatisfied with their body than both American and European men. Another interesting find in this study was that very few of the Asian men interviewed knew someone that used steroids. As far as who was closest to the female idea of the perfect male body, when given the same program females chose a body much closer to an average body type than to a “beef cake” type.

Citation: Crommie, William J.. "Male body image: East doesn't meet West". Harvard Gazette Archives. 30 Nov 2009 .

A Deeper Look into Media's Definitions of a Man - Collin

Writer Tom Nakayama examines and analyzes advertisements and the thought process of the creators of advertisements with the help of the men’s cooperative group OASIS (Men Organized Against Sexism and Institutionalized Stereotypes) to get a definition of how the media defines a man. With the careful examination of many ads, they come to the conclusion that advertising “narrows the definition of what it means to be a man.” There seemed to be only two dimensions to the media’s definition of men in advertisements: one of the dimensions depicts a single aggressive male, and if accompanied, exerting his dominance over the other, and the other dimension shows the exact opposite; a man that is gentle, sensitive, caring, and can be seen sometimes with a child. The argument is that both images completes the true definition of man, and until this two-dimensional definition is broken to show the complexity of man, the media’s image will be unjust and incomplete.

Citation: Nakayama, Tom. "Images of Men in Advertising". Center for Media Literacy. 27 Nov 2009 .

Looking Like a Man - Collin Chiu

Not just women suffer from body image problems. In advertisements on television and on billboards of body-hairless, cut, lean, square jawed men have an affect on men but not always the same as the affect of women in the media on women. Negative feelings aroused by women's body images in the media often lead to problems such as eating disorders, but men however are affected in a lesser known but still serious way; their sexual behavior. A study showed that when young men feel bad about their body image from images of men in music videos or television, the negative feelings impact their sexual well-being, possibly leading to risky and aggressive sexual behavior.

Citation: AP. "Guys have body issues, too". MSNBC. 27 Nov 2009 .