Almost nothing has a hold on our lives quite like mainstream media. It is all around us. We absorb it through social media, advertisements, and references with friends, and we listen to it and watch it every day. We grow up watching television and movies, absorbing their content into our ideals and forming opinions and biases subconsciously. Because of its consistent existence, our lives are changed by it constantly and without us realizing its full extent.
One thing that the media succeeds at is finding the most beautiful people in the world. Before social media, the internet, and movies and television were constantly on air, we were not exposed to as many idealistically beautiful faces as we see today. Now, during our formative years, we see objective beauty all around us: on social media, through entertainment, and in advertisements. Every day, I scroll through TikTok and Instagram and see photos of beautiful people in gorgeous places.
Beauty standards taught by mainstream media teach us that being beautiful means looking like everyone else. Young people understand beautiful features to be small, soft, and ultimately unnoticeable. It is programmed into us. When we grow up watching movies about wealthy, white, thin, beautiful people, it is easy to forget that most of us do not fit that genotype and it can cause us to become hyper-aware of the ways that we each fit or do not fit those standards.
In recent years, the entertainment industry has tried to move away from the idea of idealistic beauty and as a culture, we have tried to make the idea that everyone is beautiful more mainstream. Casting for movies and shows are trying to be more inclusive of all body types and depictions of high school-aged characters are becoming younger and more realistic. Media has immense power over beauty standards. It is difficult to escape mainstream media’s influence on beauty in our generation, but hopefully more inclusive representation will lead to further reversal of these harmful standards.
hanna2@stolaf,edu
