The makeup isle
People are spending more and more time worrying about their appearance and trying to dress like models. Young girls are particularly one of the most affected by this due to the media portrayal of what is considered beautiful. Magazines are particularly responsible for sending the girls all the wrong messages about hot to embrace the “hot” look. Today, even young girls are conscious about the supposed hot looks and want to imitate images that are often presented magazines and through the media in general. “The makeup isle” meme is about a father who sends a message to her daughter regarding the oppressive nature of the fashion world. From the message he opines that the makeup isle is one of the most oppressive places because it provides considerable influence regarding how a person should look like in order to have an ‘irresistible look’. What was initially generated to encourage consumerism is today being encouraged to a social order that is being infatuated by the messages themselves. The media, especially the print media such as magazines, are harmful to the girl child because they construct undesirable perceptions of the women and their appearances and reinforce such insights on a daily basis.
The meme is about the makeup and fashion industry. The origin of the meme is a supposed comment by a friend of a licensed clinical doctor, Dr. Kelly Flanagan. The doctor is a father of three and keeps a blog from which he offers opinions and personal advice. His friend is supposed to have texted him from a makeup isle telling him that the place felt like the most oppressive places in the world. Dr. Flanagan wanted to find out what his friend meant and visited a makeup store himself. It is from his experience in the store that he writes a letter addressed to his daughter warning her of his experience at the makeup store.
The meme is a depiction of what is happening in the contemporary societies. That is, the way the mass media dictates the identity and the appearance of girls and women. There is no denying that teen magazines are usually loaded with advertisements urging girls to acquire to acquire the latest ’hot’ looks. These ‘hot’ looks are usually accompanied by commands such as ‘flirt your way to date’. These magazines portray the life of girls as continuous popularity contests. School girls are prone to imitate such ‘hot’ looks and to concentrate in their appearances at the expense of their education. Once the girls start being exposed to the ‘make up isle’ their bodies become a priority. The quest for hot appearances is difficult to deal with especially for the parents. “The makeup isle meme” is an example of a parent trying to discourage his daughter against becoming too concerned about the appearances to the point of forgetting her ambitions in life.
The media sensitization of young girls regarding their appearances surpasses the health information that girls reactive from the same media. The heal information regarding the maintenance of the “hot” body that the media advocates is scarce and even the information that is existing gets little attention. The previously conservative cultures are now saturated with messages propagated by the mass media. The makeup stores provide information and pictures that display different developmental characteristics. Such characteristics comprise of the sensitivity to the peers, self-consciousness, and interests aimed at establishing independent identities. In the past centuries girls were concerned about their bodies but today the youth, especially the girls organize their minds and their way of life about themselves around their physiques. The media has increased the thought that a person’s appearance is the definitive expression of the personality. The picture in “the makeup isle” meme is a confirmation of this.
Dr. Flanagan is aware that the worldly pressures regarding appearance can have considerable influence regarding how people should look. He however pleads with the daughter not to embrace that worldly view and embrace his own view of beauty. He provides a detailed message that is radically different from the worldly view of beauty and appearance. The message to the daughter is that beauty is from the inside and not the outward look. As such, Dr. Flanagan’s intention is to caution her daughter that the messages and pictures that are usually presented by the media regarding beauty are not what they seem but they are a precursor for detrimental effects to the girls and the society in general.
Conclusion
Work Cited
Douglas, Susan J. Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done.
New York: Times Books, 2010. Print.
Kitch, Carolyn L. The Girl on the Magazine Cover: The Origins of Visual Stereotypes in
American Mass Media. Chapel Hill, NC: U of North Carolina P, 2001. Print.
Quick Meme. This Dad Has Things Figured Outn.d. Web. 24 March 2014.
http://www.quickmeme.com/p/3vug8k/page/3/
