A model's take on gender and racial representation in modern media
Cameron Russell did the unimaginable and spoke up about the reality of being a model in today's society at a TED talk. She began by saying: "I am on this stage because I'm a model. I'm on this stage because I'm a pretty white woman. In my industry we call that a sexy girl."
The standards of beauty that are set by media today are so high and unattainable that even the models that are portrayed in ads that society looks up to, are just as, if not more, insecure about their bodies as the rest of the public. She says that the images that we are exposed to and try to embody are retouched versions of the reality to create the perfect look, and that's only part of the problem. The biggest concern is that all these pictures are not pictures of the models themselves; the whole scenario of an ad is a construction that embodies the standards that media makers have set as the norm. To sum it up, image is superficial but ends up having a huge effect on our lives because our culture places such high value on looks, and media does not hesitate to take advantage of and reinforces this idea.
The standards of beauty that are set by media today are so high and unattainable that even the models that are portrayed in ads that society looks up to, are just as, if not more, insecure about their bodies as the rest of the public. She says that the images that we are exposed to and try to embody are retouched versions of the reality to create the perfect look, and that's only part of the problem. The biggest concern is that all these pictures are not pictures of the models themselves; the whole scenario of an ad is a construction that embodies the standards that media makers have set as the norm. To sum it up, image is superficial but ends up having a huge effect on our lives because our culture places such high value on looks, and media does not hesitate to take advantage of and reinforces this idea.