Blog Entry #5

   This week I was really intrigued by how our ideals and culture in the developed world affect the less developed world and how capitalism facilitates the exchange. As we have moved towards a globalized and capitalistic planet, we see cultural ideals exchanged rapidly. Western images of female beauty are readily available underdeveloped countries. This can be psychologically damaging to individuals, especially as we see typically "western" diseases such as anorexia spread to other regions. I think this is a huge danger that globalization brings. It is important that we as a human race value other standards of beauty, so that other cultures do not feel like they are less beautiful. More importantly, we need to teach people that their value as a human is not based on their beauty.

   The film we began watching on Friday, "Killing Us Softly 4", illustrated the un-achievable standard of beauty the West has created. People living in slums do not have the education or knowledge to understand that these images are completely unrealistic and should not be seen as healthy bodily standards. It is sad to me that people who already have very difficult lives feel badly about themselves because they cannot embody the perfect body image in advertising. It almost feels morally wrong to use edited images in advertising - it isn't a truthful way of representing the human body and human beauty. However, as we have seen throughout this course, the economic opportunities seem to outweigh the moral or health issues. It is unfortunate that capitalism seems to disregard human psychological health.

   I would like to know more about the advertising industry. It would be interesting to see to what extent does modifying images in advertisements actually increase sales revenue. If given unlimited resources, I would create an advertising/awareness campaign to show people - especially those in underdeveloped countries - how unrealistic and fake the images we see are. Maybe then we would begin to see a decrease in sales on products promoted by these fake images, and in turn, advertisers would not be as apt to use them. Ideally, we could promote the beauty and acceptance of real people, not fake images. It would also be important to promote other ethnicities as being equally beautiful and attractive.