From Girls to Gurus

It’s so common in our society to pressure women and men with simple things like commercials and magazines that it has become basically numbing and seems practically harmless to the eye. When I was a little girl I saw nothing unusually about a sexy woman on a magazine cover; they were everywhere so I thought that must just be what it’s like to be a grown-up. It never bothered me and I never cared. I see things like that now and I still don’t care; I probably should, but I’m just used to it so I ignore it. The pressure of beauty on today’s kids and teens is tremendous. I could tell you all about beauty gurus in the Youtube community because I enjoy watching them; not because I want to support an industry of increasing pressure on girls to look beautiful and have beautiful things, but because some of them are actually nice entertaining people. Some of them have great beauty tips, but it is true that quite a few follow the stereotypical guru pattern of getting paid by company to talk about and promote certain products to teens. Companies seek out new and increasing popular beauty gurus, usually younger teens and tweens and offer to pay them to promote their products. It’s sad that little girls and teens will be/ are looking up to these gurus as role-models, not to mention all the other external pressure. The internet is just so accessible to everyone now that no one can avoid this type of beauty pressure. Even when driving down the road or at the store… ANYWHERE!

So how does this tie into women in animation? Women have the ability to create some pretty powerful things that come from only a woman’s point of view. Un Jour was a beautiful and powerful piece about how this woman may as well just keep the guy in her stomach because at least he’s not as bad as the woman next door’s man. When he left, it left a gaping hole inside of her and she tried to fill it with lots of other men who didn’t fit quite right. That sounds like a lot of sad stories I hear in real life and is something I think a lot of people from many different situations can relate to. Same with A Feather Tale. When I saw the clips from class it reminded me of the movie Changeling (not The Changeling- that’s about a haunted house). In Changeling a single mother from the 1920’s loses her son and when the California police department returns him to her she discovers he is not her son. When she accuses the police of finding the wrong boy they are so appalled at this woman’s accusations that they throw her in an insane asylum. It’s a super interesting movie and I believe it’s based off of a true story. It’s from a time when women could not have their own voice and because she was a single mother no one would help her. She was accused of being deranged and was brutally punished for accusing the police of making such a mistake. 

So that’s part of my opinion on this topic, but if I type any more it will be way too long.