Free # 3 The Beauty Standard

Mark Andrejevic focuses his book on certain ideologies. He is aware of the desires and needs of our society and states the actual solution to any problem is often replaced with an easy way out or simply a “quick fix.” This relates to society’s beauty standards. Our economy tries to sell us on diets, surgeries and make-up, while ignoring the real matter of the problem. Beauty advertisements often have the capability to give an audience misrepresentations and distortions of what beauty actually consists of. The media message is that if you try hard enough, spend enough, or suffer enough, you will have the look you want, and that being beautiful somehow brings you happiness and success. The average beauty product claims that when you buy their merchandise; you will instantly look tighter, younger, firmer, softer, smaller, thinner, and overall more beautiful. This is clearly not entirely true. Our society has the ability to affect a young girl or woman’s self esteem negatively or positively. This all depends on how well she rejects society’s demands for what they see as beautiful. People desire a solution, yet the only way to fix the weight problem or get healthy is to diet and exercise. Because this is extremely hard work and time consuming, consumers often desire a “quick fix” solution or an easy way out. This is because advertisements are constantly telling us not to fix America’s weight problem the “healthy” way, but the “fastest” way.