Reflection on Pop Culture #4

With the chapter being on pop culture, I feel like those of us in America really understand how negative our pop culture is, and how it makes up appear to other places in the world. Here, to be skinny to the point of it damaging health is considered beauty. Why is that? Looking back at other pop culture fads from historical times, people did crazy things to “be beautiful and in style.” 

In medieval England, being a plump woman signified having enough food to eat, which indicated wealth and good health for childbearing in women. Also, having pale alabaster colored skin indicated high class women, as the laborers of the fields were tanned from being in the sun all day. Go to the 1950’s for example, Bridget Bardot, a famous model, took the trend of pale skin, and spent much time lying on the beach getting a sun-tan. When she did photo-shoots then in her “scandalous” two piece bikini, women saw her tan, slim figure, and ever since, slim and tan has become the “beautiful” look for the last 75 years. 

At least the women who stayed inside all day and ate had better health, than the women of today who put their lives on the line, from skin cancer, to near starvation with eating disorders to be “beautiful.” Look at any "high fashion" runway in the world. The models are all slim as can be, with the younger looking girls being the focus. Many are so slim, that they do not even have womanly curves because of the anorexia and binge-purging lifestyles to stay thin.

Who defines beauty? What a beautiful person looks like? Who shows the nation ideas of what “beauty” really is? The media and pop culture, they poison the minds of young girls and set them up for a lifetime of feeling inadequate and ugly. Pop culture should promote “healthy” women and not skin &bones for fashion. 

American pop culture is flawed, and any culture who believes they should follow our media is entirely wrong. Health should never be sacrificed for beauty!