Much of what
I learned came from television programs I watched when I was younger. When I
think about it, TV was a huge influence on my perspective as I was growing up.
It is scary to think about how much information I absorbed from shows, movies,
even commercials that shaped my perspective on life. Being at such a young age,
I was not able to analyze and fully understand what I was watching, so in a sense,
the programs I viewed on TV brainwashed me into thinking in the way those
programs wanted me to think.
One of the things
that television shows and movies constantly reinforce is the standards of
beauty. When you are a child, you do not really recognize who is beautiful or
not because everyone is just another person. However, when you are so young,
those standards can be so easily learned, but are only learned through being
taught. What TV was doing was establishing standards of beauty to the public,
and even subconsciously teaching young kids to distinguish between what is
considered beautiful and what is not.
When I was younger, I sometimes felt as though I did not
measure up to the beautiful actors I saw on TV. It was not until I joined
tumblr.com that I realized what was wrong with what I was watching. I have read
several text posts on Tumblr, talking about the problems with TV shows and
movies. For instance, a big dilemma in the movie industry is the fact that directors
hire adults to play teenagers. This creates a problem among teens because it
causes insecurity issues when they are unable to measure up to these impossible
beauty standards.
Personally,
TV subconsciously made me believe that curly haired girls who wore glasses were
dorky, or weird, or losers. Whether it was Agnes on The Suite Life of Zack and
Cody, or Mia Thermopolis from The
Princess Diaries, these girls who had
curly hair, were not portrayed as the most beautiful or popular. It was not until reading a text post on
tumblr about the media’s portrayal of curly girls as dorky, did I realize why I
felt insecure about my hair. It was
because of the things I was watching on TV that kept portraying girls with
curly hair as less than, subconsciously making me believe that that is what I
was.
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| Mia Thermopolis from The Princess Diaries |
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| Agnes from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody |
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