Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Current events
All I have discussed should have given you an idea of what kind of images of women presents us media today. However, media has extremely raised a very interesting issue recently: Plus-size modeling. Plus-size models and their walks on runways have become such a popular issue recently that I can even use this issue as a subject of blog which, as you know, is Stereotyped Images of Women in the Media. This does not necessarily mean that I already consider plus-size models as one of the stereotyped media images presented today by the media but the fact that they become very popular and can become a ‘threat’ for today’s popular media images by changing them is also very significant.
What is a plus-size modeling? Who are the plus-size models? What success do plus-size models have?
To have a better understanding of what is a plus-size modeling I will present you general requirements which plus-size models should satisfy. The following list of requirements is offered by portfolio hosting service “Models Connect”: “ If you’re curvy in all the right places, have a look at our top requirements and suggestions for making it as a plus size model – Firstly, as a plus size model you will advertise clothes, accessories and products for the larger woman. Therefore, it is necessary that you represent this look so must be at least a UK size 12 to qualify. Ideally, you will be a UK dress size 12, 14 or 16. Although, sizes 10 and 18/20 are also used, it is far less common. Secondly, as with any other style of modelling, height plays an important roll. You must be at least 5’6”, however, it is recommended that you are between 5′8″ and 6′0″tall. Thirdly, you must be toned. Even though you are plus sized, you should represent an idealised plus sized form, think Rubenesque. You will be required to look full figured but may also still model for swimwear, lingerie or fitness gear. Finally, you should be in proportion. Your bust, waist and hips should be about ten inches apart in size (i.e. 42-32-42) or very close. Your figure should be well balanced and you should not appear top or bottom heavy.” (ModelsConnect)
Some of the plus-size models who became very famous are Crystal Renn, Johanna Dray, Barbara Brickner, Justine Legault, Whitney Thompson, Kate Dillon, etc.
Here you can watch an interview with one of the most famous and young plus-size models Crystal Renn talking about how she became plus-size model and her first experience on runway on Jean-Paul Gaultier fashion show :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-g__2p-bgA&feature=related
Plus-size models can be seen walking on runways more and more often. For example, Canadian fashion designer Mark Fast chose some fuller figured models for his fashion show. Here is a short interview with the designer on the mentioned event:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGQJuALzNGo
One of the big recent successes that plus-size models achieved is a “Curves Ahead” issue at V Magazine with Terry Richardson photo-shoot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eOFuOu4xEI
"Plus Size Model :: Modelling UK." Model Agencies Scouting, Can You Be a Model? :: Modelling UK. © 2005 - 2010 Modelsconnect.net. Web. 10 May 2010.
.
What is a plus-size modeling? Who are the plus-size models? What success do plus-size models have?
To have a better understanding of what is a plus-size modeling I will present you general requirements which plus-size models should satisfy. The following list of requirements is offered by portfolio hosting service “Models Connect”: “ If you’re curvy in all the right places, have a look at our top requirements and suggestions for making it as a plus size model – Firstly, as a plus size model you will advertise clothes, accessories and products for the larger woman. Therefore, it is necessary that you represent this look so must be at least a UK size 12 to qualify. Ideally, you will be a UK dress size 12, 14 or 16. Although, sizes 10 and 18/20 are also used, it is far less common. Secondly, as with any other style of modelling, height plays an important roll. You must be at least 5’6”, however, it is recommended that you are between 5′8″ and 6′0″tall. Thirdly, you must be toned. Even though you are plus sized, you should represent an idealised plus sized form, think Rubenesque. You will be required to look full figured but may also still model for swimwear, lingerie or fitness gear. Finally, you should be in proportion. Your bust, waist and hips should be about ten inches apart in size (i.e. 42-32-42) or very close. Your figure should be well balanced and you should not appear top or bottom heavy.” (ModelsConnect)
Some of the plus-size models who became very famous are Crystal Renn, Johanna Dray, Barbara Brickner, Justine Legault, Whitney Thompson, Kate Dillon, etc.
Here you can watch an interview with one of the most famous and young plus-size models Crystal Renn talking about how she became plus-size model and her first experience on runway on Jean-Paul Gaultier fashion show :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-g__2p-bgA&feature=related
Plus-size models can be seen walking on runways more and more often. For example, Canadian fashion designer Mark Fast chose some fuller figured models for his fashion show. Here is a short interview with the designer on the mentioned event:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGQJuALzNGo
One of the big recent successes that plus-size models achieved is a “Curves Ahead” issue at V Magazine with Terry Richardson photo-shoot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eOFuOu4xEI
"Plus Size Model :: Modelling UK." Model Agencies Scouting, Can You Be a Model? :: Modelling UK. © 2005 - 2010 Modelsconnect.net. Web. 10 May 2010.
Links:
Here is a least of links related to the issue of my blog, where you will be able to view some of the most popular stereotyped images of women presented by nowadays’ mass culture, as women with ‘indigo’ appearance which looks unnaturally thin and is imbued with asexuality and aggressiveness, or looks like a suffered victim. The other image is aggressive and actively replicated in different visual products, where the woman appears as a killer, demon, bearer of sin and evil. (However, the ideological roots of this image are not associated with computing technology of mass culture. They have ancient origins and are essentially desacralised parody of the biblical image of the sinful Eve (or apocryphal image of the first woman Lilith)
And this is not all you will see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBdJkSqEFR4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmmRly907gU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZWuk4TEQRQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFYIIUyDVas&feature=related
And this is not all you will see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBdJkSqEFR4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmmRly907gU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZWuk4TEQRQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFYIIUyDVas&feature=related
After reading the article we can say that if little girls and boys are small adults, the adults in popular culture diligently infantilize.
Nowadays, together with the woman’s image we don’t see not only her oldness but the image of a child too. At first glance, this situation is paradoxical because in the mass culture there is an entire industry of childhood subculture: children literature and art, industrially produced toys and games, kids' clubs and camps, a paramilitary organization, technologies of collective training, etc. However, this subculture has primarily target of explicit or disguised universal child-rearing. Childhood industries are introduced into their consciousness standardized rules and patterns of personal culture, ideologically oriented conceptions of the world, laying the foundations of basic values, officially portrayed in popular culture. Nevertheless, a content of subcultures of childhood in its aesthetic, psycho-emotional, ethical and artistic-figurative performance is not quite for children in its essence. We can think of how many scenes of violence, vulgarity, aesthetic or artistic failure occurs in productions of infant industries, which are incompatible with the psyche or the life experiences of the child.
Nowadays, together with the woman’s image we don’t see not only her oldness but the image of a child too. At first glance, this situation is paradoxical because in the mass culture there is an entire industry of childhood subculture: children literature and art, industrially produced toys and games, kids' clubs and camps, a paramilitary organization, technologies of collective training, etc. However, this subculture has primarily target of explicit or disguised universal child-rearing. Childhood industries are introduced into their consciousness standardized rules and patterns of personal culture, ideologically oriented conceptions of the world, laying the foundations of basic values, officially portrayed in popular culture. Nevertheless, a content of subcultures of childhood in its aesthetic, psycho-emotional, ethical and artistic-figurative performance is not quite for children in its essence. We can think of how many scenes of violence, vulgarity, aesthetic or artistic failure occurs in productions of infant industries, which are incompatible with the psyche or the life experiences of the child.
It is noteworthy that all the varieties of women images in contemporary mass culture – a female,’ indigo’, fury – are young. In these fragmentary and one-dimensional stereotyped images of women there is not such a stage of old age, and this not an accident. The value of youth, a body, preferably, but not a spirit is almost absolute in mass culture. The youth here is not only a physical concept, but the condition of career, aesthetic preferences, ethical priority. Bodybuilding, aerobics, sports, tourism, service industry in physical rehabilitation, scope of medical services and pharmaceuticals for changing appearance, sex, etc. - all this is a specific area of common industry of services, standardizing ones’ appearance in accordance with the current vogue for the image, gender demand, etc. Secondly, the institution of elders as carriers of knowledge and skills necessary for future life of next generations doesn’t work in mass culture.
Media demands of young female images have reached such extremes that as the article “Media and Girls” on Media Awareness Network claims “Over the past decade, the fashion industry has begun to use younger and younger models, and now commonly presents 12- and 13-year-old girls as if they were women. Camera angles (where the model is often looking up, presumably at a taller man), averted eyes, wounded facial expressions, and vulnerable poses mimic the visual images common in pornographic media.” (Media and Girls)
"Media and Girls." Media Awareness Network | Réseau éducation Médias. Media Awareness Network. Web. 15 May 2010.
Monday, May 17, 2010
The image of man (human) in popular culture has undergone a dramatic transformation. Most traditional cultures represented man as a very complex hierarchical essence, synthesizing a variety of nature (material, mental, spiritual). In today’s reality man appears in mass culture only as a material subject. Regarding to this we can recall a very popular hit of 1980ies by Madonna – “I am material girl”. Moreover, according to an officially recognized doctrine, a man comes from monkeys, and, consequently, is wholly owned by the natural world. In a condition of such a narrowing of the ontological nature of man, the highest pleasure in a hierarchy of material pleasures acts sex, sexual enjoyment. That’s why sex is one of the main values of mass culture.
Sexual Attraction is one of the most general state of the animal world, not just people. This is truly basic instinct, and hence, a production, built on sex, will not be a subject to any fashion, nor competition, or technical progress, and therefore will be stably profitable.
As most people remain heterosexual inclinations and popular culture is influenced by traditional male mentality, then the main object of sexual desire and pleasure is a woman. And consequently, in conditions of mass culture, the objects of an entire industry are woman’s industries. Clothing, underwear, stockings, cosmetics, shoes, accessories, jewelry, art of makeup and stylists, fashion – all these are huge industries producing goods for woman’s physical attractiveness – a prerequisite for obtaining a higher sexual pleasure in mass culture. With almost equal with men engagement in production, a woman in popular culture has a central role in industries of pleasure (entertainment, leisure), which contributes to woman’s influence on all manifestations of public life, which hasn’t been seen since the Stone Age!
It’s not a surprise that all these changes of truly existential scale have influenced the formation of other, non-traditional image of women. ‘Gender’ look at the woman doesn’t have only positive traits that are expressed in expanding their social role. While giving women a social freedom, the mass culture ‘in payment’ to this almost completely destroys her traditional image, bringing this freedom to destructive absurdity. In their image women lose their inextricable link of concept – ‘woman-mother’. In popular culture (especially its leisure part) the image of women is particularly associated with sex. High technologies of mass culture are promoting distancing the two concepts of ‘woman – the mother’, by giving a rise to such phenomena as cloning, surrogate mothers, children in vitro or artificial uterus. Although a certain part of society is sharply negative related to these processes, there are also many supporters of new ways of human reproduction.
A beauty of the body becomes in popular culture perhaps the major advantage of women. The beauty is seeking to become woman’s content, dislodge the spiritual, and to some extent psychological content of individual women.
In contemporary mass culture is already quite well-established and entrenched in artistic field the following archetypical images: The super-woman, the killer (“Kill Bill”, “Le Femme Nikita”) , mutton dressed female (“Death Becomes Her”, “Basic Instinct”), a woman – demon (“The Ninth Gate”), and lonely, but rapidly maturing children (“Harry Potter”). It’s easy to see that popular idea of woman’s image is not associated with such a fundamental institution of any culture, as a family.
Representations of women in popular culture are hoof, desacralised, primitive, and are seeking for destruction of the main natural function of women, which means that they are imbued with hatred for the woman, but not love. A birth of elements of a new culture is hardly possible when based on hatred, at least because it is contrary to ontological laws of life.
Sexual Attraction is one of the most general state of the animal world, not just people. This is truly basic instinct, and hence, a production, built on sex, will not be a subject to any fashion, nor competition, or technical progress, and therefore will be stably profitable.
As most people remain heterosexual inclinations and popular culture is influenced by traditional male mentality, then the main object of sexual desire and pleasure is a woman. And consequently, in conditions of mass culture, the objects of an entire industry are woman’s industries. Clothing, underwear, stockings, cosmetics, shoes, accessories, jewelry, art of makeup and stylists, fashion – all these are huge industries producing goods for woman’s physical attractiveness – a prerequisite for obtaining a higher sexual pleasure in mass culture. With almost equal with men engagement in production, a woman in popular culture has a central role in industries of pleasure (entertainment, leisure), which contributes to woman’s influence on all manifestations of public life, which hasn’t been seen since the Stone Age!
It’s not a surprise that all these changes of truly existential scale have influenced the formation of other, non-traditional image of women. ‘Gender’ look at the woman doesn’t have only positive traits that are expressed in expanding their social role. While giving women a social freedom, the mass culture ‘in payment’ to this almost completely destroys her traditional image, bringing this freedom to destructive absurdity. In their image women lose their inextricable link of concept – ‘woman-mother’. In popular culture (especially its leisure part) the image of women is particularly associated with sex. High technologies of mass culture are promoting distancing the two concepts of ‘woman – the mother’, by giving a rise to such phenomena as cloning, surrogate mothers, children in vitro or artificial uterus. Although a certain part of society is sharply negative related to these processes, there are also many supporters of new ways of human reproduction.
A beauty of the body becomes in popular culture perhaps the major advantage of women. The beauty is seeking to become woman’s content, dislodge the spiritual, and to some extent psychological content of individual women.
In contemporary mass culture is already quite well-established and entrenched in artistic field the following archetypical images: The super-woman, the killer (“Kill Bill”, “Le Femme Nikita”) , mutton dressed female (“Death Becomes Her”, “Basic Instinct”), a woman – demon (“The Ninth Gate”), and lonely, but rapidly maturing children (“Harry Potter”). It’s easy to see that popular idea of woman’s image is not associated with such a fundamental institution of any culture, as a family.
Representations of women in popular culture are hoof, desacralised, primitive, and are seeking for destruction of the main natural function of women, which means that they are imbued with hatred for the woman, but not love. A birth of elements of a new culture is hardly possible when based on hatred, at least because it is contrary to ontological laws of life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)