Movie Icons Essay -- Female Body, Monroe, Clifford

In the early 20th century, women idolized movie icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Camille Clifford. Around 1900s, Camille Clifford started the trend where the standards of beauty were set around 140 pounds, at 5’4† feet tall. Back then, the ideal female body is by having a smaller mid-section (e.g. hourglass ideal/corsets). Marilyn Monroe’s tiny waist and seemingly large bust line triggered female fans to start to engage more on physical activities. The outburst on slender-looking portrayal of body-image began in early 1960s (e.g. Fashion icon, Twiggy). Most western societies experience enormous pressures on individuals to conform and achieve the thin-ideal. This influence by mass-media affects just about anyone including males and females, adults, adolescents, and children. The exposure to mass media’s depiction of the thin-ideal body may be linked to body image disturbance in women. Researchers Grabe, Hyde, and Ward (2008) conducted a meta-analysis which examined experimental and correlational studies focusing on media exposure’s relationship with women’s body dissatisfaction, eating behavior, and internalization of the thin ideal. Their findings from these analyses suggest that media exposure is strongly correlated with women’s body dissatisfaction. They assert that exposure to media impacts women’s body image negatively regardless of other variables (e.g. assessment technique, individual variability, age, etc.) Many scholars find it indeterminate when the assumption is made that body image has worsened (and continues to worsen) for both genders over time. The essence of investigating whether the trend in body image has changed over recent decades is to get a better grasp regarding the correlation between body satisfaction a... ... Researchers have consistently found a strong correlation between exposure to the media’s portrayal of the thin-ideal body and increased body dissatisfaction. Results of several studies indicate that women’s body satisfaction has increased over time, on average. It has been hypothesized that this trend may be due to a larger public awareness of exaggerated portrayal of the thin-ideal by the media. Because the average female’s body-mass index has also increased over time, it has additionally been suggested that there may g acceptance of larger weight, less exaggerated body ideals, termed â€Å"real bodies.† While female body satisfaction has increased on average over time, male body satisfaction has remained largely the same. Researchers have suggested that body-satisfaction differences between males and females may be originate from differences in body comparison.