Magazines

When you look at a 10 year old girl what do you see? Do you see a girl with flawless skin and a model ready body? No you see a little girl finding her way in the world and struggling to come to terms with the fact her body is changing-she is hitting puberty. Yet the magazines they are buying are telling them they need to have flawless skin and a models body. This makes them look at themselves and see their flaws rather than their amazing qualities.Girls begin to doubt themselves and try and change to meet highly impossible standards of perfection.

If you look at this Creme Mag you see the preppy and stunning Sarah Hyland who has had hours of hair and makeup and a tonne of photoshop to look the way she does. she Has awkwardly big eyes and tiny wrists and hands making it look as if she has stuck a fishbowl in front of her face. What girl actually looks like that? This image and the articles advertised on the cover demonstrate and skew the perception that others have on how teen girls act and what they are like. If i looked at this Magazine from the mind of an adult I would think that all girls were interested in were celebrities and how to be cool at school.

This kind of Representation has some impact on girls even if they think it doesn’t, there subconscious is taking in all the negative stereotypes and they start wanting hair like Taylor Swift or Make-up like Lorde.  They then see the beauty section and see all of the amazing clothes and look alike outfits, they see the makeup tips and then think, yah i can look like them and then go out and spend alot of money on things that won’t really make a difference in who they are as a person and even if there is one clothing item like jeans they love and go out to buy it they then see the cool top that goes with it and have to get shoes to match and accerories and then they see the other cool things in the store and the price really gets up; and for what - a couple of compliments. They think that just because they get these things they can change and “be cool”.

Creme magazine and girlfriend are the number one best selling magazines for girls aged 9 to 14, And if you look at the same creme issue the Magazine theme is ‘I Heart Pets’ which is fitted for the age of girls buying the magazine, they love animals and seeing celebrities with cute pets is cool and at the same time gives props to celebrities and enforces the fact they are normal people; which girls love because they can relate even if its only a little.

But the rest of the articles are telling or implying that girls should look a certain way or do a certain thing to be popular, for example an article that was not important and not exactly great information was an article about how to be the teachers pet, because that is an important thing to know! but of course learning study skills isn’t. This kind of representation is bad for girls because they don’t learn life lessons or anything school related that is important, like study tips or how to keep focused.

But is it reality? Do girls really look perfect and retouched like it is portrayed of course not. They are just normal girls who get pimples and aren’t splashed all over the gossip pages or constantly being talked about, its great they have so many people as role models but sometimes the people classified as role models are people who are messed up and do things that they shouldn’t and when they do it’s in the public eye and they can influence what girls think is right. This is something that is inevitable because of course nobody's perfect and everyone makes mistakes but advertising so many celebrities and their advice about how to become famous just makes girls want to be more like them. Why don’t we ever see things about real life heroes or people who do amazing things plastered on cover of magazines, why aren’t they recognized for their achievement? The simple truth is that having famous people on covers sells magazines and makes money and that is what girls want to see and it may not be right and it may give out some bad influences but we have to trust that girls realize that all the photos of celebrities are retouched and that nobody is perfect. Girls want to know the gossip and thats ok and that what sells. But.. Why not stick some real life juice into magazines and show girls that being you is ok and all these celebrities aren’t the only people who can make great role models.