Women's Bodies in Art vs. Women in Today's Media

Being that I am a Marketing major and also an advocate for positive and healthy body image, I have always had this conflict in my head about where I fit into the equation. I know that the way women are portrayed in popular media today (in TV commercials, print ads, billboards, etc.) is very skewed and misrepresentative of our society as a whole and in a way I feel guilty working in any realm of marketing. However, I also know that I cannot single-handedly change the way women are depicted in the media. And it's not just Americans who are being bombarded by these unrealistic ideals of beauty. For a while, I thought that beauty standards around the world were much better than they are here. Take European countries for instance. I studied in Barcelona, Spain for a semester and there was a much more diverse sense of fashion there. Women seemed to care much less about how they looked (or how others perceived them) and they expressed a much more unique style. However, the same images that are plastered on our billboards and in our magazines here in the US are very much present over there. I found a wonderful video that was put together by Elena Rossini, a documentary film maker and super awesome feminist. This video deconstructs the images of women that are shown around the world in commercials, ads and billboards and shows several famous works of art in which women are the primary focus. It is amazing to see the difference between the images of women seen by the masses a few hundred years ago and how far we've come in terms of what is shown now. What do you think?

Ideal Women from Elena Rossini on Vimeo.