Angela Consonni
Dr. Joyce Stevos
FNED 346
November 28, 2017
The Illusionist
“The ideal consumer is an addict… someone who needs the product”, says speaker Kilbourne in Gender Women’s Studies event, The Illusionist. In our class, Foundations of Education, the first assignment was to talk about how S.C.W.A.M.P relates to our society. S.C.W.A.M.P is an acronym for these key terms; straightness, christianity, whiteness, able-bodiness, maleness, and property ownership. The video I watched at the event, mainly focused on able-bodiness, and how it corresponds with our society today. This video highlighted on the themes of makeup, the weight loss industry, false advertisement and false beauty. Another relation to S.C.W.A.M.P that was brought up, was the power of whiteness. This is the first topic that Kilbourne communicates to the audience.
The Illusionist documentary showcased a number of experts on the subject. Kilbourne, an author and activist was the first speaker. She brought up the dominance of white skin and how men and women of different colors and ethnicity have attempted to change their complexion to look the part of those in power. “It is unattainable”, says Kilbourne. “That’s where you go out and see products that are extremely dangerous because there is no way that you can change the color of your skin that you’re born with. Why don’t we just accept that brown is beautiful; that black is beautiful.
Kilbourne brings up an example of a skin whitening product titled, Fair and Lovely and also a counterpart for men which is named, Fair and Handsome. People believed that these products would help, whether it would lead to a better career, matchmaking, or just appearing as the west say, more “civilized”. Appearing white would improve their superiority. Another example mentioned by Kilbourne, were the L’Oreal makeup commercials. These advertisements have shown that the skin tone of famous singer, Beyoncé, has changed throughout the years to match the standards of beauty at the time.
The second topic of discussion in The Illusionist focused on weight loss, and unreachable goals of the “perfect body”. Harrison Pope, the author of The Adonis Complex was the prime speaker for this issue. Most people who diet, do so in cycles, in the hope of achieving a slim figure, and this is just what Pope talks about in his book. This novel describes a form of obsession, where healthy men become absorbed by compulsive exercising, eating disorders, body-image distortion, and the abuse of steroids. The bar of being attractive in society is difficult and for some, impossible to reach.
Over the years, the size of fashion models has decreased. Even fashion models today are retouched to look even thinner than they are. This idea spreads throughout the globe telling people that photo shop is okay. Kilbourne says, “recently, Ralph Lauren ran an ad where the model had been photo shopped to have an impossible body. Her head was actually bigger than her pelvis.” Pope says, “even for thin models, protruding bones are airbrushed out.” Attempting to reach these standards can lead to dangerous consequences, and according to Dr. Tetsuya Ando from the National Institute of Mental Health, 30% of Japanese women in their twenties are categorized as underweight.
False advertising and beauty standards also leads to the illusory ideas of sex. Gail Dines, author of Pornland, talks about sex and why getting an audience aroused is the most successful form of advertisement. It is in music videos, commercials and in the fashion industry. Dines says, “Would you all agree that the food industry shapes the way you eat? Would you agree that the clothes industry shapes the way you dress? So, would you not say that the sex industry shapes the way we have sex? We cannot make sense of media today without starting with the idea of pornography.” We see women, thin, toned, big breasted, and hairless. Dines continues the discussion bringing up that young boys are first introduced to sex through pornography and come accustomed to the idea of what being “sexy” looks like.
Both young men and women look up to the standards of beauty in their society. Young girls want to look like women, dressing up in heels, makeup and jewelry. Finally, Gail Dines talks about Barbie dolls, and how the commercials make’s young girls wish to be skinny; to be beautiful; to be glamourous. I relate this piece of The Illusionist to one of my favorite blogs of the semester, Critiquing Cartoons and Society. This blog talked about how the minds of young girls playing with Barbie dolls and watching Disney princess movies start to be manipulated. At my third visit at Asa Messer Elementary, I asked many of the students what they wanted to be for Halloween. Almost all of the girls told me that they wanted to be a princess. I asked one of the girls, “why did you choose to be a princess?” She answered, “because I want to look pretty.”
The social justice event was very interesting, and made me think about everything we had learned in class this semester. The issues dealing with false advertisement and beauty were my favorite themes of this course to learn about. I am lucky to have had the chance to see an event on something that had already sparked my interest in the classroom.
Social Justice Event : The Illusionist
"You gotta do much more than believe, if you wanna see the world change." 