Last Thursday after class I went to the showing of the film "Miss Representation". The Film was directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who was a television and film actress distressed by the effects of the media's portrayal of women on her daughter. The film illustrated many of the problems with today's women and young girls, citing numerous statistics about how because women and girls are expected to achieve an unnatural level of beauty, many develop problems with self-esteem, develop eating disorders and can become depressed or even suicidal. The film also covered how even women pursuing careers that were not image based but still featured on television and in magazines are pressured to maintain a "feminine image". Interviewees included female politicians such as Condelza Rice and Nancy Pelowski as well as various female hosts of news tv shows.
The film worked emotionally telling stories of women and girls who's lives were much worse then they could have been had there not been so much pressure on them to achieve certain body types that are not healthily achievable by the vast majority of people.
I found that although the film pointed out many problems it did not seem to offer many solutions. As a male member of the audience I felt that nothing was addressed that I could personally do to help women feel better about themselves or to avoid perpetuating the current paradigm of female objectification in pop culture.
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