The Bodywatch Project

A Closer Look at Women in Western Culture

It is no secret that today's media portrays women as flawless entities, and this portrayal in turn pressures young women to attain an unachievable standard of beauty. Through advertising and film/television production, popular culture depicts flawless beauty and physical perfection. Most American women are unhappy with their weight or overall appearance. And only in Western cultures such as America do we see epidemics of eating disorders and warped perceptions of the body.

Beauty magazines, one of the largest culprits (in my eyes) have always simultaneously offended and interested me.The magazines provide "tips" for dating, beauty, sexuality, and losing weight. The articles and images are rampant with subliminal messages that subtly reinforce the reader's belief that she is not thin or beautiful enough. Thus, the reader is encouraged to buy beauty/dieting products such as those avertised in the ads of the magazine. The diet industry, among others, now grosses billions per year ($40 billion to be exact). It is the only industry in America that thrives on the repeated failure of its consumers.

Within the past eight to ten years, these magazines have been made available online in an effort to reach a wider audience. The websites, featuring articles, advertisements, and images, essentially serve as an online form of the tangible magazines. Examples can be viewed at www.cosmopolitan.com, www.cosmogirl.com, www.beinggirl.com,and www.seventeen.com. My senior project, bodywatch.us, explores and questions the nature in which young women are "targeted" by the media. Using the world wide web as my medium, the final product of my work is a website that stands alone as its own work of art. I chose to exhibit this work over the internet in order to mimick the aforementioned websites, and also to reach a wide audience of viewers. The first pages of the Bodywatch website appear as any other online magazine or beauty source. They are full of images, catchy slogans for links, and appear ordinary in content. However, once the user explores the website, he/she soons finds that the content is indeed contradictory. Using humor, satire, and informative content, Bodywatch draws attention to the severity of this issue. My aim is to educate an unsuspecting audience while simultaneously producing a conceptually rich body of work.