This is a class blog run by Dr. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru and her students in the course "Telenovelas, Culture and Society" at the University of Georgia during Spring 2011

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Beauty in Telenovelas

Per our group presentation, my group members and I were challenged to look deeper into the women's issues present in the telenovelas we are studying. Present in each telenovela is a similar depiction of beauty. I wonder who in the telenovela industry, or the media industry, or even the world for that matter is responsible for these concepts of beauty and it's seemingly uniform definition. Consumer industries feed off the unrealistic expectations that they sell to their consumers. Everything from makeup to clothes to food is advertised by the world's most "beautiful" people. Continuing what I stated in class, it saddens me that we live in a world where now even supermodels, the most gorgeous women alive, are even more unattainably beautiful due to technological advances in media. It's amazing to me how contradictory our world is today. In a new age where people are being told to express themselves, be comfortable with their own identities, we are steadily and even more forcible trying to sell them an image of being even better than that. For Christ's sake, animals are now getting testicular implants. Somewhere we've gone horribly wrong. I feel that mass media outlets, and telenovelas in particular should be held more responsible for the consequent effects their shows cause. As consumers we have a lot of power. If as a whole people demanded more media responsibility, I think we'd see some changes in how things are done.

3 comments:

  1. I do agree that the beauty obsession has gotten out of control in our society. I think it is a great reflection of our media. But I truly believe that with such intelligent writers like Leonardo Padron, the media can try to change this. Padron presents such important social issues in his writing and weaves it into the plot lines seamlessly. I really admire his work and efforts!

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  2. Media definitely has to take a lot of responsibility for the images that are portrayed and how it affects viewers. Many women think that they have to look like the women on the tv screen when those women aren't really representative of the majority population. Juana la Virgen featured an actress that wasn't the typical body shape and I love that!

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  3. I definitely agree with you Sequoia. The media plays a very large part in portraying what many see as "what everyone should look like" when this in reality is almost impossible. Females should not think it's the norm to be 5' 7" and weigh 115 lbs and guys shouldn't have to have a six pack. If there were more people involved in media like Leonardo Padron, this maybe would not be the case. I certainly hope in time our media outlets will change and decide that these supposedly "gorgeous people" shouldn't be portrayed as the norm.

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