Just Do It: Direct Vs. Indirect Media Education Lessons for Men and Women

Hatoum and Belle (2006) pointed out that reading magazines targeted at men often lead males to be dissatisfied with their physique and want to add muscle. Also, men had much higher, usually unrealistic, expectations of female fitness if they regularly read these magazines.

There are at least two routes toward combating this trend. We can put men and women (or boys and girls, but only one age group in a session) in a classroom setting and introduce them to advertisement and magazine images that represent unrealistic human form. We can inform them what makes these images unrealistic (ie. digital manipulation, steroids) and the pervasiveness of the practice in advertising.

This would be the direct route. Normally, I am all for this, but we have seen such studies only attain pieces of the desired results. Therefore, I suggest we come at them sideways.

We are now in a formal setting, and the students are informed that the next project will be worth a significant portion of the grade for class X. We discuss advertising and the strategies that are used to make a persuasive television advertisement, possibly showing some examples. Assured that they are noticing issues like unrealistic body image, we inform them of the assignment. They must produce a short advertisement for a product, using the strategies that they are aware of. The ads will be shown to another class and their grade will be determined by how many of those students would be willing to buy the product advertised.

So now the students scurry off and seek ways to sell their product. What they will soon realize is that they cannot rely on the tactics that soda and car commercials do, because they cannot possibly put those things in front of the camera. The body of Cindy Crawford is not going to help them sell their can of Pepsi because a very low percentage of women have a shape remotely like hers, and it is unlikely that one of those few is sitting in their classroom. They will realize that the bodies of the real, tangible individuals that we interact with daily do not resemble Heidi Klum or Jesse "The Body" Ventura.

Now the students realize that what they encounter in magazines and commercials are less "real" people and more constructions created through dozens of individuals manipulating and producing what is essentially an "effect." The degree of separation between the manipulation of a model in a magazine advertisement and the digital/physical amalgamation of Benjamin Button in David Fincher's film is due to nothing more than a matter of preferred method of production. The digitally "painted on" model and computer generated model of Brad Pitt's head on the body of a 60 year-old actor are equally absurd in their appearance when compared to the reality that is placed in front of the camera.

At least Fincher gives us, the audience, a tell to indicate that this is indeed fantasy. Even the least sophisticated viewer will notice that Button's head (the digital model of Pitt's) is unusually large for his body. The character maintains this proportion until his age is approximately that of Pitt, when he actually does his own acting.

The magazines don't give us this wink of the eye. They would have us believe that what we are gazing upon is reality. It is a disservice that harms the self-esteem of many individuals, and a practice that shows no sign of dissipating.