Body Project

For the photography projected I wanted to explore and challenge our society's obsession with personal image.  Like we discussed in class this week, our society is constantly bombarded with images of "the perfect body" through various forms of media.  Men are pressured by society to appear strong and masculine.  Often when they are physically small, they are viewed as weak and feminine.  Women feel the pressure to have the perfect body even more so then men.  Images  in fashion magazines put pressure on women to be extremely thin and delicate, this is viewed as feminine and attractive.  Unfortunately, these images are unrealistic and unattainable yet people still strive to achieve the perfect body through physical fitness.  Attaining this goal has become an obsession for some people.  Sometimes this obsession can be dangerous, leading to eating disorders and over exercising.

The bombardment of images through the media is similar to what we have discussed in class surrounding Edward Said’s experiences with the Middle East.  We see images that are unrealistic and we believe them to be reality.  Two examples of this would be altered and manipulated advertisements in fashion magazines and stereotypical portrayals of Muslims.  Our society views these images through a lens which distorts the actual reality.  Women and men in advertisements do not represent the majority of people in our society, similar to the way in which stereotypical images of muslims do not represent the entire muslim population.  Edward Said’s work was an inspiration for me to challenge the images around me.  We have become complacent as a “spectacle society” accepting whatever images the media feeds to us.  

I approached this project by choosing a subject that I wanted to challenge, which was the idea of the “perfect body” and how it is portrayed in our society’s media.  I wanted to challenge the idea that “the perfect body” is not really attainable, yet people strive to achieve it anyways.  I was especially interested in how the “perfect” female and male body was visually represented in our media.  This “perfect body” is almost impossible to achieve because the models in advertisements are manipulated and photoshopped.  Even though they are not real, people believe these images represent reality.  I chose to photograph students exercising at the gym because I felt that it perfectly demonstrated the affect that media has had on our generation.  The massive amount of people at the gym shows the influence of the media on our youth.  People have become so aware of their body image.  They are obsessed with the way their bodies look and are constantly striving to improve themselves, attain perfection, and appear more attractive.  They believe the way to achieve this image is through physical fitness.  Exercising is a normal and healthy habit, but in some cases the media can influence people to take it to the extreme.