Watch Media Distort Our Perception Of Beauty: Dove Evolution Video

Media and marketing profoundly influences the lies we tell ourselves. In movies, television, and in advertisements, we are fed information about who we should be.

(This post is not about wearing or not wearing makeup. It is about valuing yourself rightly and being at peace with who you are on the inside.)

For most woman living in mainstream American culture, attaining the perfect appearance has become core to our value. It’s essential that we look eternally 20 years old with big eyes, perfect skin, bouncy well-managed hair, perfectly white teeth, and a very slim yet decidedly feminine figure. If not this ideal, we feel unattractive, and there is nothing we can do to make up for it. 

No matter how hard we try, we cannot be smart enough, clever enough, nice enough to compensate for our imperfect looks—we will never be as valuable as the “beautiful woman” sitting next to us.

For a man living in the American culture, you have slightly more flexibility than women around how to be culturally valuable. Your gender is most tied to your physical strength, money, position, or your intelligence.

Dump The Body-Image Lie

This is the big body-image lie: “If I can change something about my body, others will finally like and accept me and I will be able to like and accept myself.” It is so easy to base our self-worth on our looks or appearance because it is the first thing others see in us.

We need to be armed with knowledge and capable of helping our young girls (and boys) to know that there is an real enemy who deals in lies and fakery.

He lies through Media which is one of his useful tools! Let this short, fast-speed (1 min.) video clip, “Dove – Evolution”, expose the truth.

Fight back and show this to your children.

Do you think the clothing industry and marketing firms know that most consumers are dissatisfied with their bodies and would like to look different than they do?

“In fact, the goal of most mass marketing and consumerism is to make us feel badly about ourselves. We are encouraged to lie to ourselves about our true value because the worse we feel, the more we will buy! For after convincing us that we are less than ideal, the media will offer us endless products that claim to fix our prescribed faults. For example, if marketers convince us that we are not good-looking enough and then offer us products to fix our flawed appearance—make-up, anti-aging products, dieting aids, hair growth serums, plastic surgery—we are more likely to buy them.” (source)

We have a massive preoccupation with ‘thinner is better’. Almost everywhere we went as we shopped in a upscale mall in a metropolitan US city, we saw mannequins clothed in trussed-up off-the-rack merchandise. That is, pulled back and pinned or tied.

We found this to be a very widespread practice. The apparent fit we see on the mannequins is NOT really how the clothing is made at all. It gives the illusion of tailored thinness, but each garment is quite a bit bigger than what you think you are purchasing.

This goes for men’s as well as women’s clothing.

Once we get this piece of clothing home and put it on, of course, we be unhappy with our body shape.  ‘But it looked so nice on the model.’

Consciously or Subconsciously

No matter what we buy, we won’t be happy with our looks as long as we believe a lie. Did you know that after three minutes of looking at fashion magazines, 70% of women reported feeling guilty and inadequate? Have you ever feel that way? I know I have!

Did you know one study showed that…

1. 24% of women would sacrifice 3 years of their life to be thin
2. Girls as young as five have expressed fears of getting fat
3. 90% of high school junior and senior girls diet regularly even though only between 10-15% are considered overweight.

A large body of research suggests that mass media is doing an convincing job of making us feel pretty bad about ourselves. As we internalize cultural values and ideals of appearance, we become more dissatisfied with ourselves. We are lead like sheep to the slaughter to spend enormous amounts of our personal resources – money, time, and energy – attempting to fix our flaws.

The Truth: We need to become more discerning consumers of media. We need to think critically about the messages that we learn from a very early age. We must determine whether we aspire to be a certain way because we believe it is right or because we were culturally-conditioned to believe it is right.

Prompt: The next time you watch television or a movie, ask yourself: What messages is this show promoting about my fundamental value as a human being? Have I internalized this message? If so, perhaps it is time to change.

5 Powerful Ways To Be Proactive With Media

{Warning: This could be harder for the adults than for the children}. This is not by any means a complete list.

1.) Consider stopping catalog/magazine media coming to your home. This is a entry for exposure we often overlook. We stopped getting this type of media years ago when I began comparing myself to what I saw. They also fed my materialism.

2.) Prayerfully consider getting rid of or monitoring media coming into your home on your TV or cable service. The internet is outside the scope of this post, but our whole family uses Covenant Eyes for all our accountability and filtering. We ALL love it and are so thankful for it!

3.) Pray about the dolls and toys your children play/identify with.

4.) Show the Dove Evolution video above to your family and discuss it over a meal. Ask them what they have seen in our culture that seems fake or deceptive to them.

5.) Apply the Word of God and discuss what it means to trust in Him for our self-worth.

“Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” ~ John 8:32

“All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you.” ~Song of Solomon 4:7