MEST 4: Research & production: Penultimate draft

Penultimate draft

“We all want to be famous people, and the moment we want to be something we are no longer free.”[1]

To what extent does the representation of celebrities effect teenage girls?

It has been said, "there is an almost universal preference for the skinny figure in representations of female fashion models”[2]. Magazines, TV adverts and films are all overwhelmed by emaciated celebrities "creating an image dominating culture with no real reference to the real world."[3] Although the "skinny figure"[4] is promoted by the media today imposing teenage girls to live up to the ideal thinness, this was not always the case. In the early twentieth century, the desired body image was that which reflected a feminine body with the ability to bear children. The 1940s and 1950s exemplified the curvaceous and voluptuous ideal through the female icons of the time, such as Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Jane Russell. However, the 1960s saw a shift and with the likes of fashion icon Twiggy, the ideals were replaced from 'voluptuous' to 'very thin'. The trend stayed consistent until today as the media has bombarded teenage girls with "photographs in magazines of perfectly toned, tanned, made-up, and airbrushed women that portray a difficult-to-attain — if not impossible — standard of beauty"[5] making it the norm for all teenage girls.

For us "celebrities act to fulfil our own dreams of autonomy and dreams of intimacy”[6]. We as the audience desire to be like our most admired celebrities, hence the reason why we try to match up to them forming an artificial relationship that we believe is true. We presumably like to think that we have some sort of relationship with our ideal celebrities. This explains why many teenage girls go to such extents to match up to their ideal celebrities as the relationship evokes the need to be like them. Even more, "the media portrayal and construction of celebrities shapes the way in which audience understand and make sense of the social world"[7] .The audience perceive the social world to be constructed based upon the celebrities. The reason for this may be that the media have plagued the audiences of celebrity culture, which makes the audience believe that this is the ideal or the norm. The mass media is an example of the hypodermic syringe model that has the ‘power’ to inject certain hegemonic ideologies through various different media into their audiences. This shows that the extent to which celebrities influence teenage girls is through the various media they utilise to receive information, which reflects these dominant ideologies of celebrity culture. For example, the TV programe “Extreme Skinny Celebrities”, states "65% of [females] have been on at least 5 diets…92% of you are unhappy with your body [and] celebrities being a source of pressure."[8] This is an example of the hypodermic syringe model as the teenage girls are absorbing the dominating values of the celebrity culture of being thin and as a result they are striving to achieve or at least match up to the celebrities. Another historical example of the hypodermic syringe model is where "Silk Cut is using the terminology 'super slim' to make the link between smoking their product and losing weight,"[9] and also more recently "designer Jean Paul Gaultier…sending models down the catwalk in Paris with lit cigarettes."[10] This is merely encouraging vulnerable teenage girls into adopting certain habits in order to obtain the ‘ideal’ form. Jean Paul Gaultier, as a world famous designer, would have a powerful influence on teenage girls, so by using cigarettes as an accessory for his models, teenage girls would assume that smoking is the new trend and would be more likely to adopt it.

Most studies of the body image support the argument that “the celebrity is a voice above others, a voice that is channelled into the media systems as being legitimately significant”[11]. The stress is upon what the celebrities consider as important, this is because the people themselves are striving at anything related to celebrities giving significance only to things that have a celebrity encounter. Through this, we can examine the power celebrities possess, questioning the cultural forces behind our need to become endlessly implicated with the creation and collapse of celebrities. Magazines such as Heat, which are sub labelled as ‘The UK’s most famous celebrity brand’ feature sections such as celebrity news, through which the institution is able to encode information for the consumers to decode. They do not “simply reflect, they provide the symbols, images, ideas and frames that constitute power itself”[12]– the institution is able to “create some of the forms by which power operates”[13]. The symbols created by the institution stimulate power and regenerate dominant ideologies, which are then watered down into the consumers. For example, one edition of the Heat magazine captioned: The Return of the Skinny Celeb”. The caption encodes the cultural capital of celebrities, essentially evoking the dominant ideologies of being skinny, which is then diluted into the consumers, in this case teenage girls. As celebrities constitute power, they are able to form the basis of their beliefs and values through an organised system, which is then voiced in the magazine. This shapes the audiences’ thoughts as the celebrities have the power to inject their hegemonic ideologies through various different mediums such as Heat magazine, into their audiences - teenage girls and justify their control as "legitimately significant"[14].

Some film studies scholars such as Richard Dyer have also argued that celebrities have a prominent influence over audiences, their "privileged position in the definition of social roles and types,"[15] has influenced people’s expectations on how they or others should behave. Audiences are reluctant to see the real accomplishments of the celebrity and instead find pleasure in knowing their secrets revealed in gossip filled magazines. This again allows celebrities to take control, as they are able to manipulate what is let out to the audiences giving form to their “artificial behaviour”[16]. Less stress is placed upon what their real accomplishments are or what they really are famous for. The actual value placed on celebrities is how much coverage they receive in the media - their visibility both on and off screen. This eventually leads to consumerism, where receiving more information about their personal lives and obtaining material goods advertised by them is seen as essential. For example, in 1960 when fashion model Twiggy set the trends of the “gaunt look”[17], the influence lead to teenage girls “vomiting to control their weight.”[18] In this sense, the celebrity is able to blur the authenticity of information released to the audience and is able to stimulate belief systems in their interest. Therefore, “The greatness of the celebrity is… in essence…the ideal representation of the triumph of the masses”[19] as for some, the celebrity provides the language, which gives a voice to our desires and reflects the realities and reveries of fame.

Jackie Stacey, a cinematic theorist who takes the reverse view of Laura Mulvey’s male gaze (men gazing at women) and examines the female gaze where females gaze upon female celebrities. Stacey argues, “The distance between the spectator and her ideal produces a kind of longing which offers fantasies of transformed identities.”[20] This helps us in understanding why celebrities affect many teenage girls, as female celebrities offer the ideal feminine appearance that teenage girls desire. For example, Girl Guiding UK surveyed over one thousand girls about their attitudes and issues that effect them. The survey revealed that “body image, bullying and cosmetic surgery”[21] ranked the highest in terms of the issues effecting them. Furthermore, the impact of “airbrushing”[22] was brought to light as digitally manipulated images in celebrity magazines disguised the actual reality and swayed girls into pursuing “quick fix cosmetic surgery like the celebs.”[23] The survey projects the attitudes of discontented girls who feel dejected by their appearance and their apprehension to acquire the ideal form. By having constant exposure to certain media texts such as, celebrity magazines and TV programs, this may exacerbate the effects on teenage girls by distorting their view of the ideal image. However, these texts also give teenage girls a purpose of personal relationships and personal identity. Personal identity and relationship is achieved by indulging into celebrity magazines or TV programs, whereby the spectator is able to identify similarities and differences between them and their ideal. The differences allow the audience to dispel into a world of reveries where the possibility lies of their desires being fulfilled, “on the other hand, they value similarity for enabling them to recognize qualities they already have.”[24]

However, finding this personal identity and relationship with their ideal celebrities is what causes issues that effect the teenage girls as they yearn to acquire, or, allow themselves to be enthralled by celebrity texts such as, magazines. For example, the teen magazine Bliss, surveyed two thousand girls regarding their body image, which found that “68%...desire to acquire a “perfect” celebrity body”[25]. This accentuates the fact that the way in which celebrities are represented has a major effect on teenage girls. An example is the newspaper headlines shown in the “Extreme Skinny Celebrities” programme, where the show consists of various different newspaper headlines such as "Eat or you will die"[26] and "Emaciated Lindsey Lohan collapses."[27] Such headlines create what Cohen defines as a moral panic, where “the attribution of the moral panic label means the ‘thing’s’ extent and significance has been exaggerated in itself and/or compared with other, more serious problems.”[28] In this sense, the issue concerning eating disorders will essentially generate hype and initiate a moral panic amongst parents and the effect it will have on their teenage girls who see them as role models. The programme also constitutes to Mary-Kate Olsen and her eating disorders as there are several shots taken where the focus is on her anorexic body. In one shot, the camera zooms into the photograph and imposes our attention to her skeletal figure. In addition to this, the shot of the headline "Olsen Anorexic" creates a moral panic as it threatens the health of teenage girls in our society taking in account that Mary-Kate Olsen is also a teenage girl herself.

To conclude, it is understandable that the extent to which the representations of celebrities affect teenage girls is huge as being underweight is considered the norm. Through various different media such as celebrity magazines and TV programmes that distort what is real and what is simply a reverie, the celebrities are able to inject their hegemonic values into the teenage girls. The indulgence or inability to resist certain media texts that allow us to form a personal relationship with our ideals has taken away the reason to why we call them celebrities in the first place. Rather than appreciating their accomplishments, we grasp to be “styled or accessorized in the same way that famous people are.”[29] Celebrities will always affect teenage girls, as this audience will always be vulnerable and drawn into gazing upon them as individuals who possess ultimate power in the “giant stimulation of reality”[30] that is contemporary mass media.

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Bibliography: Work Cited
Books:
Bennett, Petter and Slater, Jerry and Wall, Peter (2006): The Essential Introduction. Oxen: Routledge.

Cashmore, Ellis (2006): Celebrity/culture. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Cohen, Stanley (2002): Folk devils and moral panics: the creation of Mods and Rockers. Abingdon, Oxon: Routeledge.

Evans, Jessica and Hesmondhalgh, David (2005): Understanding Media: Inside Celebrity. Berkshire, England: Open University Press.

Holmes, Su and Redmond, Sean (2006): Framing Celebrity. Ambingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Laughey, Dan (2009): Media studies Theory and Approaches. Herts: Kamera Books.

Lewis, A. Lisa (1992): Adoring Audience- Fan Culture and Popular Media. London: Routledge.

Marshall, P. David (1997): Celebrity and Power: Fame in contemporary culture. Minneapolis, USA: university of Minnesota Press.

Soloman, Michael (2006) Principles of Marketing: AND Consumer Behaviour, a European Perspective. Upper Saddle River: Financial Times/ Prentice Hall.

Steven, Peter (2003): The No-Nonsense Guide to Global Media. Oxford: New Internationalist Publications Ltd.

Wall, Peter (2007): Media Studies for AQA GCSE. Hammersmith, London: Harper Collins Publishers.

Internet:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/20629/richard_dyers_theory_of_movie_stars.html?cat=4
http://www.frankwbaker.com/kids_media_celebrity.htm
http://www.greatmagazines.co.uk/women/heat-magazine.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/03/girls-attitudes-body-image-dieting-guiding
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/jan/05/pressandpublishing.medicineandhealth
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/tobacco-firms-target-teenage-girls-with-super-slim-products-cigarettes-966237.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/doctors-demand-action-on-anorexia-websites-1789424.html
http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/communication/henderson.html
http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/communication/henderson.html

http://thinkexist.com/quotations/celebrity/3.html

Moving image text:
http://www.livingtv.co.uk/video/celebrity/extreme-skinny-celebs-2-ep1.php

Work Consulted
Books:
Abrams, Nathan and Bell, Ian and Udris,Jan (2001): Studying Film. New York.

Bernink, Mieke and Cook, Pam (1999): The Cinema Book, 2nd edition. London: British Film Institute.

Creeber, Glen (2004): Fifty Key Television Programmes. London: Hodder Headline group.