Blog # 6

Miss Representation is a film that sheds a light on how media portrays women unrealistically. The film demonstrates how media has evolved beyond being just the messenger, and has also become the message itself feeding into to our society. Miss Representation shows how the message society is putting out is teaching girls that the most important thing they can do is look good, and that their appearance surpasses any other achievements. And paired with new techniques and technology, computers and other digital mediums have allow us to edit theses images on TV and advertisements to a completely unachievable standard. The women on advertisements are portrayed as perfect, and girls are comparing themselves to these figures. This self objectification has become a national problem. And to add on to that, Hollywood is constantly hypersexualizing women. All of these things send off the message that in order to gain power, they have to do it through their appearances and their sexuality. And when women do achieve a significant amount of power and position, despite these factors playing against them, they often receive a lot of backlash. Media treats power as if it is only defined by men, and this dehumanization towards females has negative effects on society as a whole. It teaches boys to think that they have to be better than women, and this causes grown men to become threatened once women reach superior positions because they feel as if women are trying to take over instead of just growing themselves. In my opinion, Miss Representation did a wonderful job of exposing these realities and also educated people who may not have been aware that these things were going on. And I hope that film will cause people to break out of this mindset and form a realistic perspective on the expectations imposed on women.