On February 2, 2023, we were lucky enough to visit the Paley Center for Media to take an interactive class alongside the Women’s Representation in the Media group. The class was called “Girls, Body Image, and the Media.” We got to look at and compare movie clips, TV show clips, and music videos from across many decades, and see how women and body image ideas were portrayed. This was super eye opening to how young teen girls may see themselves in/based on the media, and how that might effect their mental health. An example of this may be them seeing diet culture portrayed in the media from a young age, potentially resulting in disordered eating. That was probably my biggest take-away, because I pretty much knew that but actually getting even more information and getting to see that in action through real clips from media was super eye-opening. We also learned so much about the sexualization of women in the media, which isn’t directly connected to mental health, but I suppose it could be.
