Media Analysis 2

The second advertisement I chose is the first page of an article in Glamour magazine. It is a survey where 16,000 women tell their body confidence secrets. It shows pictures of three different women that would not quite fit into society's ideal form of beauty. It targets women of every different shape, color and size. It is implying that you do not have to be perfect in order to be confident. Naomi Wolf explains in The Beauty Myth that most women feel that women's magazines "transmit the worst aspects of the beauty myth", but this article shows that women's magazines are beginning to come out of the conformity of society's idea of beauty and now promoting women feeling beautiful in their own skin. This is the perfect example of what Wolf states, "Cosmopolitan-is indeed revolutionary compared with the earlier service magazines...their formula includes an inspirational, individualist, can-do tone that says that you should be your best and nothing should get in your way; a focus on personal and sexual relationships that affirms females ambition and erotic appetite."
The picture of the first woman is a picture of a woman that has a little more weight on her than the typical woman featured in beauty magazines. By having a woman with a little more weight on her as the picture for the cover of the article is refreshing because it shows that this article is not going to be about the ideal beauty. It gives the appearance that even if you have a little extra weight you too can be beautiful. The picture of the girl in the middle does the same because you see the woman laying on her stomach and you can see that she has what appears to be rolls as her body curves and the last picture shows a women of darker skin showing how you can be beautiful no matter what race you are.
By having normal women with normal imperfections, the advertisement allows normal women to feel more comfortable with their sexuality. Women are shown at first glance of the article that they too; no matter what shape or size or color, can be beautiful. It shows that the culture is slowly opening up, that is slowly starting to embrace more willingly women and girls that go against the traditional feminine type. Popular culture has drilled this idea of the perfect woman into girl's heads for a very long time now but our culture is slowly realizing that it is impossible for women to fit this ideal. We are now starting to embrace the true beauty of women which comes from inside. The advertisement does a good job of showing that with just a little confidence you can portray the beauty that you have within. It shows that women do not have to be perfect any more, we can have little imperfections.
I think our society is moving to this new way of thinking because of all the damage the old way was doing to women. Women have been harming not only their bodies but also their self esteem because they have been trying to be what the media dubs and beautiful and never quite being able to do it. Instead of continuing to promote doing harm to yourself our society is realizing that it is important to first develop women's self esteem first and foremost. Our society is also realizing that in order to promote self esteem in women we have to embrace women of every shape, size and color. This advertisement is a perfect example of how to promote self esteem in women which will in the end promote their own individual idea of sexuality.