This presentation discusses how media representations of gender and beauty influence societal norms. Unrealistic ideals are portrayed - women are expected to be extremely thin while men must be muscular. These portrayals shape gender roles, with women often depicted as weak victims and men as strong protectors or villains. Scenes of violence like rape also usually portray women as helpless and men as powerful. The media gaze constructs women as passive objects for the male audience. Through constant exposure, these images shape perceptions of appropriate gender roles and relationships.

1. A Presentation by Felicia Noyes

3. Those pictures are the BEFORE
pictures…

4.  Her stomach has
been thinned.
 Cellulite Removed
 Her butt was made
smaller and raised.
 Her legs were
thinned and
lengthened.
 Her arms were
thinned.
 Her breasts were
enlarged, slightly

5.  Her stomach was
thinned.
 Her arms and
shoulders were
thinned slightly.
 Her face and jaw
was thinned out.
 Her butt was made
significantly
smaller.

6.  Stomach and
side were
thinned.
 Front arm was
significantly
thinned out
(into a pencil,
in my opinion)
 Second arm
added to give
depth effect.
 Laugh lines and
bags under
eyes, softened
or eliminated.
 Shoulder
bones,
eliminated.

7. Why do they need to be
photoshopped??

8.  Victoria Pruin DeFrancisco and Catherine
Helen Palczewski, authors of Communicating
Gender Diversity, talk about the power of
media.
◦ “Female beauty is one example of media power over
gender. Beauty norms change, and a driving force
in that change is media representations of
beauty…” (P. 238)
 It’s no doubt that our idea of beauty has
changed over the years. However, our view of
beauty is starting to become almost
unrealistic.

9.  I was shocked and
amazed at this photo.
 For one thing the little
girl looks beautiful and
adorable in the original
photo.
 Secondly, the doctored
photo looks completely
 It is an ad for a digital fake and makes the girl
retouching company, look like she is much,
specifically for junior much older.
pageants.

10. You must look FAKE, in order
to be REALly beautiful?

11.  Men are over
sexualized and
given examples of
an unattainable
image, just as much
as women are.
 Men are told to be
thin, muscular, and
very masculine.

12.  An interesting fact about these images and
how they are marketed towards us is that:
◦ “…women tend to overestimate the degree of
thinness men find attractive. Why? One explanation
is that the ideal of extreme thinness is most
prominent in magazines targeting women, not in
men’s magazines. Similarly, men tend to
overestimate the degree of muscularity attractive to
women. Why? Same dynamic.” (DeFrancisco and
Palczewski, p. 242)

13. But in reality these images do
not reflect the preferences of
the opposite sex.

14. One example is the depiction
of rape in the media and
popular entertainment.

15.  When rape is portrayed on television there are usually
certain gender roles that each of the characters are
portrayed as.
 Almost always women are viewed as the victims of
rape. While there are examples of male victims, they
fall into the minority.
 These women are usually viewed as weak and though
they might try to fight back, they are always defeated
in the end.
 Or in some cases, the male protagonist saves them at
the last minute.
 Men are usually viewed as being strong and
powering, no matter if they are the perpetrator or the
savior.

16.  There is a good example in
the movie, Watchmen.
 There is a scene where one
of the main female
protagonists is beaten
down and almost raped, by
a male “hero”.
 While she does fight back at
first, she ends up losing the
fight and is pinned down on
a pool table.
 She is saved by another
male “hero” who walks in
and stops the act.
 (I was going to get a clip of
the scene to show, but I
couldn’t find a good clip of
the entire scene.)

17.  Do the “ideal” images that are portrayed in
our magazines and media help create and
form the different gender roles and ideals?
◦ If men are portrayed as being muscular and strong
as being the ideal, then male characters in movies
and TV will be portrayed the same way.
 Whether they are portrayed as being strong in a good,
heroic sense, or strong in a bad, villain sense.
◦ And if women are portrayed as being skinny, sexual
objects, without much muscles, then their
characters will be viewed as being somewhat
weaker and always the victims of sexual acts.

18.  The authors talk about
the idea of the “Gaze”,
aka. The way a woman
is looked at and
viewed in the eye of
the audience, film, etc.
 “The way the camera,
the audience, and the
male character (with
whom all spectators –
male and female-
identitfy) look at
women reinforces the
male as active and the
female as passive.” (p.
250)

19.  The way men and women are portrayed in the
media physically, has a great effect on how their
gender roles are portrayed .
 The power of media has a great influence on how
gender roles are formed because the media is
where we, sadly, get most of our information.
 The barrage of images of the “ideal” male and
female bodies create not only unrealistic
expectations for what a man and woman are
supposed to look like, but it also creates a sense
of how women and men are to act with one
another. (Aka. Men are supposed to protect
women from other men.) Women are viewed
almost as property to men.