On February 2nd, we visited the Paley Center for media, a digital museum. The Paley Center does workshops regarding some of the things they have collected, and we attended a workshop on how the media has depicted women over the years. In earlier clips, from the 1950s-60s, it was made very clear that the only accepted body type was thin, and girls would try and make themselves look fatter in order to make men stop liking them. In clips from the 70s-80s, even in fighting shows, women were dressed in revealing and impractical costumes, and barely moved in order to remain womanly. It was overall a theme throughout these clips that the women were oversexualized and looked down upon by the men around them. The portrayals of these women was also very stereotypical. In a clip from pretty little liars, which aired in the 2010s, two girls talked about their friend who had died, but quickly switched to talking about their new hot male teacher. These clips were poor representations of women, and were just stereotypes of how women actually act. On the bright side, the more recent clips did show better representations of women, who were strong and depicted in a positive way, which shows that representation has gotten better over time. One of the more recent clips was an advertisement for an Always ad, and it showed boys being told to do things “like a girl.” The boys tried to follow the directions in a more girly, weak-looking way, but when the girls were told to do things like a girl, they did things in a normal way that wasn’t overly weak or “girly.” It was nice to see a general picture of the way the representation of women has progressed and how it has gotten at least a bit better.

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On February 14th, our group interviewed Liz Vaccariello. Liz was an editor-in-chief for various magazines including People Magazine, Real Simple, and Prevention magazine. She started her career in the Cleveland Magazine and is now included in their Journalism Hall of Fame. She is now a praised author with 9 New York Times bestseller books.

Liz talked about how being a woman helped her career and also simultaneously negatively affected her career. Liz has worked at many different environments and as woman, her experiences with those careers differed. She got hired for more “womanly” careers, meaning articles and magazines that were pushed towards women. She has worked for magazines that were focused on women’s health, homes and children. When Liz worked with Parents magazine, she helped change the narrative of women only taking care of the children. She mentioned that before, when a parent was taking their kid to the pediatrician in the image, it was almost always the mother. As years have gone by, in Parents, both parents are pictured taking care of their child. When she started her job with Cleveland Magazine, she was one of the only women in the office and was often sexualized walking through the office or even in meetings. She talked about small comments about her clothing, or “don’t forget to wear the red dress for the big meeting tomorrow!”. This workplace perspective helped us understand that how the media depicts women can affect their future lives and careers.

We also talked about how instead of this issue of misrepresentation getting worse, it is getting better, especially in print media. However, in broadcast media, there is a certain type of sought-after female journalist that many companies want to hire. We learned that on News Websites like FOX, the female journalists are almost always white blondes. That was common for so long but more News sources have made the change and there is more representation for people of color and disabled people. The way that we can make a change is praising, re-posting, and commenting on articles, news sources and media coverage of journalists who are not the stereotypical perfect woman. Eventually, Liz hopes that seeing more diversity in the media will become the new normal and won’t need calling out.

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For a very long time, the makeup industry operated in a specific manner. Large posters showing thin women with flawless hair and faces and overtly feminine products promising to make you appear like them if you use their goods. Milk Makeup, however, is trying to change this. We spoke with Tyler Smart, the chief creative officer, and Kate Ingram, the director of creative operations. They explained to us how the community served as the foundation for their business and how they still uphold it as a core value. We also heard about the process of choosing models for product advertisements and how weight and race aren’t factors in the selection process. It was intriguing to learn about what happens behind the scenes of the advertisements that we see every day.
The way Tyler and Kate described the way they worked was honestly very refreshing. They described their models as “real people,” rather than the standard thin, white model shown so often in today’s society. They also described their products not as something to change your face structure or “fix” the way you look, but rather smaller things to enhance the face you were born with. It was nice to see a brand focused on the people and community rather than just profits. Overall, it was a really interesting experience and I learned a lot. It was great to see people actually being represented, people that look like the average citizen instead of someone who has devoted their entire career to looking perfect at all times. I think this interview gave our group a lot of insight into the behind-the-scenes aspect of the makeup industry and how Milk Makeup is working to change it.

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Our group joined the Mental Health group for a presentation at the Paley Center for Media in Rockefeller Center on February 2nd. Rebecca, who gave us the presentation, showed us footage from movies, TV shows, and music videos that depict women in various ways. These videos were made from the 60’s to the 2010’s. Some clips sexualized young girls, some created a horrible beauty standard, while others conveyed the notion that women are weak and need men to save them. Rebecca showed us some clips from some coming of age tv shows like “Pretty Little Liars,” “The Vampire Diaries,” and a show from the 60’s. In Pretty Little Liars, two teenage girls were talking about their friend dying, then instantly switched to talking about the new hot teacher. Same for many other shows, viewers usually don’t notice it, but in many films, girls only like talking about boys. They can’t pass 30 seconds of screen-time without mentioning a boy they’re obsessed with. Rebecca remarked that “sex sells” in music videos and that it is rare for many female musicians to sell songs without using sexual content in their videos and album covers. We watched a portion of Britney Spears’ music video “Baby One More Time,” which was shot when she was 16 years old. Right after she turned 18, her “Toxic” music video was a lot more sexual and explicit. This is one of many examples of women being sexualized at a very young age for men. In every advertisement of young girls that we saw, they were all white and very skinny. Although most of the clips depict women poorly and dehumanize them, we did watch a pad commercial that surprisingly had a significant meaning. Young boys were asked to run, throw, and fight “like a girl.” Unfortunately, the boys performed all of these actions in a weak manner, sending the impression that girls are weak and un-athletic. When the girls were asked the same question, however, they executed all of these movements with strength, indicating that women are strong. This commercial demonstrated the sexism that boys are exposed to in the media at a young age without even realizing it. This research at the Paley Center was extremely beneficial to our group because we were able to witness actual material that showed what our topic was about.

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On January 26, we went to the Milk Makeup headquarters in Soho. We interviewed two people there: Kate Ingram, the Creative director of Creative Operations and Tyler Smart, the Chief Creative Officer. Founded in 2014, Milk is a makeup brand that is vegan and cruelty free. Tyler and Kate gave us a tour of the office, and we were able to go behind the scenes of all the shoots. We saw unreleased makeup, people working in their office, and we learned how they chose what products to release, and how they picked the designs for the packaging. Milk Makeup’s mission is to represent people of different ethnicity, sizes, and genders; so this was really helpful for our project. Milk is aware of the effects that the ideal of beauty has on people, particularly women, and believes that their brand must reflect “real” people, not just thin, white models that conform to the beauty standards.
Milk Makeup is different from other brands because they’ve been representing women of all ethnicity and body types since it was founded. Everyone who works there believes that being inclusive is necessary. Milk is really making a change by sticking with their mission, and is one of the only big makeup brands that has been inclusive from the start. Our group learned so much, and it was an amazing experience for our first fieldwork leaving the building.

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On Thursday, February 2nd, we were given the opportunity to go to the Paley Center. The Paley Center is a digital museum that teaches classes on certain topics relating to TV, advertising, and radio programs. We sat in on a private workshop led by Rebecca. She showed us a montage of different clips from TV shows, music videos, and commercials from the 50’s to the early 2000’s. Most of them exemplified the same topics.

In some of the older clips from the 50’s-60’s they were very discriminatory of different body types, and being “fat” was seen as scary and ugly. Most of the girls who were stereotypically pretty, got more attention, and the girls seen as “ugly” were completely ignored. In more media from the 70’s-80’s there was a lot of talk about dieting and eating disorders, and also making sure girls looked perfect for boys. There were also a lot of women that were over sexualized. For example, in a wonder woman show from the 70’s, she wore a tight corset showing her cleavage, and very tiny shorts. When she was fighting she would barely fight so she could remain “womanly.” In clips from the 90’s-2000’s there were a lot of common themes with high school girls talking about random or serious things then randomly jumping to talking about boys. There was a lot of themes being stupid and clueless.

Overall, even though we have evolved as a society and our perception of women in the media, there are still the same themes coming up today. It’s important for us to realize and notice these things. It made me think because some of these shows that were shown in the montage, are shows I have watched before. I didn’t even notice some of the problems with the way that the female characters in the show were portrayed. This was a very eye opening experience, and I’m so glad we had the opportunity to go to a class. I’m excited to learn more about this and do some of my own independent research.

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On February 2nd, our group accompanied the Mental Health group and went to the Paley Center for Media and did a workshop. Rebecca showed us a ton of clips from movies, TV shows, and music videos. We started off with a clip from a sitcom from the 60s, where a girl’s dad sent her on a date that she didn’t want to go to, so she did her best to make herself appear “ugly”. She uses compressed air to make a sort of fat suit, and the laugh track in the background was very loud during the scenes where they were making fun of women. We talked about the Bechdel test, and how if you put most TV shows or movies to it, majority of them fail. The Bechdel test is a test where 2 women are featured, that those women talk to each other, and that they discuss something other than a man. It was interesting to see how shows will degrade women in order to make the show more “funny” or “relatable”. In the music videos, Rebecca mentioned how in the music videos, “sex sells” and for a lot of female artists, it was hard to sell any albums without being sexual in the videos and album covers. We didn’t just look at clips that were negatively portraying women, we also saw an ad by always, the pad company, asking a young boy how he thinks that girls run and fight, and the difference in how he acted and young girls acted was incredible. It shows how much sexism is in the media and how young kids internalize it without even realizing. This experience was new and helpful for our research, and helped us get some information on how long this media representation really has been going on. I also thought more about how much media we consume daily and how that the things we see just live in our brains, almost subconsciously. It’s understandable that young people will see this content and try to look a similar to them or act a similar way. This helped us understand that the stereotypes of women that are portrayed in the media affect the way young girls think of themselves, but also how young boys and men view the women in their lives.

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Yesterday we were able to go to the Milk Makeup headquarters in Soho. Milk is a makeup brand that is vegan, cruelty free, and overall clean. They are known for their diversity within their brand and also their differing mission from other cosmetic brands on the market. Their products design wise are very gender neutral and fun. When we first arrived, we took a tour of their office and got to see what they do there. Everything from coming up with new products, working on advertising, creating PR and hiring models, to doing photo shoots, happens all there at the office. After the tour, we sat down with Kate Ingram and Tyler Smart. Kate is the director of Creative Operations, and Tyler is the CCO of the Creative operations. They both work very closely with all of the teams and make sure everything is going smoothly, and they are getting everything done before the deadlines.

After touring the office, we sat down and started their interview. We asked questions about their main mission of the brand and how they have evolved. Milk started as a photography studio that would take photos of “real people,” and progressed into a makeup company that was supposed to enhance your inner beauty, and not just cover up your face. When representing their products they choose all kinds of people of different races, genders, age, and body types. Over time, Milk has created such a great community that has really created a positive reputation for them. This makes the buyers feel good about the makeup they wear, and the brand they are supporting.

The interview was really helpful and I’m so glad we had the opportunity to talk to Kate and Tyler. They are such a unique brand and I’m so excited to use this interview for our project.

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Our group interviewed and got a tour of the Milk Makeup. Milk Makeup is a clean, vegan and cruelty free brand and is known for their diversity, they strive to show “real people” and enhance your inner beauty. We talked to Kate Ingram, the Director of Creative Operations and Tyler Smart, Chief Creative Officer. When we first got there, we got a full tour of the office and we got to see all of the employees working on future launches, perfecting ideas for new products and working on PR and advertising. The office had a very laid back vibe, and was clear from first glance that the company was committed to creating a community for it’s employees and it’s clients.
When we interviewed Kate and Tyler, we asked about their mission statement and how, as a company they strive to differ from the other makeup brands on the market. The brand started as Milk Studios, where they photographed “real people”. The packaging is meant to be very utilitarian and used as more of a tool to enhance your inner beauty, to promote that there is more than one definition of beauty, which differs from a lot of the cosmetic brands on the market. Kate also mentioned how this brand would probably not have gained as much popularity if it had started in the 90s. The beauty market has changed so much in the last 20 years, and it has become more clear how media representation affects the people on the receiving end. Tyler also talked about how they often hire models who do modeling on the side and have “normal” day jobs. The brand tries to make sure that the prospective buyer feels represented by the models. This interview gave us a new perspective on how media representation is changing for the better and companies are trying to make people feel included and represented.

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Our group interviewed Elizabet Altunkara, the Director of NEDA (Education at the National Eating Disorder Association). NEDA helps people who are struggling with eating disorders, body image issues, and their website goes into detail of what eating disorders are, how people develop them, and how to help someone who has one or prevent it.
They were an amazing organization to interview because they educated us about the many ways eating disorders and body image issues develop from the representation of women in the media. Elizabet told us that most eating disorders come from body image issues, which is a result of women comparing themselves to what they see online.
The way women are represented in ads, movies, and social media has a significant effect on the way women view themselves. Keeping up with the beauty standards is exhausting, and damaging mentally and physically. People who are unhappy with their appearance feel they are flawed in comparison to others, and they are more prone to suffer from depression, isolation, low self-esteem, and eating disorders. While there is no single cause of eating disorders, studies show that body dissatisfaction is the most common contributor to the development of anorexia and bulimia. Elizabet also made an interesting point about how COVID increased the rates of eating disorders because the only human contact people had was in the media. This caused women to compare themselves more. It wasn’t uncommon for people to be overeating, or under-eating. I’m so grateful that we were able to interview Elizabet, our group learned so much from her.

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We decided to interview Natalia Petrzela. She is an author, activist, and fitness expert. We heard about her through our teachers and learned about what she does through her book on the pros and cons of the fitness industry, along with the articles she has written about beauty standards and the fitness industry. She has been in the fitness industry for a while and knows all about the unrealistic standards and socioeconomic divide that goes along with it.

We interviewed Natalia about how the fitness industry’s effects on women and girls, and how it can be quite toxic, along with how she thinks this issue has progressed over time. She told us that although she thinks the issue of the fitness industry and it being toxic (ex. Making comments about how women have been “bad” just by eating or forcing women to pay large amounts of money for a class that doesn’t do much) has gotten better over time, but it is still not great. She also referred us to some other people and organizations we could possible volunteer at in the future, which was really useful. We also read her articles, which also gave us some useful information. One of her articles was about the toxicity of an idea of a “beach body” and how it restricts women and has negative effects on their body image and self esteem. Overall, it was a very useful interview and we learned a lot, it will really help us when we put together our teach-in.

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We spoke with Natalia Petrzela, a professor, writer, and specialist on America’s obsession with fitness. She’s important to our topic because she has experience with the way women are represented in the media. We interviewed her over Zoom and asked her questions about her career.
Natalia wanted to educate us about a number of different ways that women’s representation in the media leads to unhealthy exercising. She explained to us how the fitness business in the 90’s was especially harmful for women and focused entirely on obtaining the beauty standard, not being healthy. Since then, fitness culture has been progressing slowly, although there are still many issues. Although most people consider exercise as a good thing, they are unaware of the significant physical and mental harm it may cause. One of the numerous ways social media may be harmful is when people watch other people exercising in the media and feel bad about how much exercise they do.
Despite the fact that exercise is very beneficial and important, some people exercise for the wrong reasons, such as trying to achieve an unrealistic body type. In order to stay healthy, people need exercise, but the way that women’s bodies are portrayed in the media isn’t always realistic, and it can make women feel as though they need to change how they look. I never thought about exercise being something that can be negative, i’m so grateful that we had the opportunity to interview Natalia.

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Last week we had our interview with Elizabet Altunkara, the Director of Education at NEDA. NEDA, the National Eating Disorders Association, is one of the largest nonprofits in the U.S. Their mission is to help any people who suffer with eating disorders, but also educate people on what an eating disorder is and how to prevent one. NEDA has a website with lots of information but they also have a hotline for anyone who is struggling with this, or is curious about eating disorders.

Elizabet said that most people who experience body dissatisfaction feel as though their bodies are flawed. Most people but mainly women, feel that they don’t have their ideal body and this idea usually results to eating disorders. On the website it states, “Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.” These symptoms can be different for everyone, but these are the most common ones with eating disorders. A lot of girls and women feel that they need to be thin and beautiful in order to be “desirable” or “accepted.” A lot of boys feel that they need to be thin and muscular so they can feel more masculine.

From both sides, the reason why many people have eating disorders is because of our culture and the pressure to be a certain way. NEDA’s goal is to really teach people to love themselves and learn to accept their bodies. This organization is so amazing and inspiring and I’m so glad NEDA exists. It is such a great help for anyone who is struggling with eating disorders and/or has any questions about it. It was a great opportunity getting to talk with Elizabet.

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Our group interviewed Natalia Petrzela, she is a parent in middle school, a writer, a historian, professor, fitness expert and activist. She has written two books, one about America’s obsession with fitness, and another about modern political culture. She has written several articles in different newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, and the Atlantic.

In our interview, she talked about America’s fitness culture and body standards, and how it’s changed throughout the decades. In the 90s it was desired to be super slim, a term that it sometimes referred to as “model skinny”. In the 2000s, it turned more curvy with big boobs and wide hips, but small waist and not much of a stomach, and that gained a lot of popularity with the Kardashians as they were looked up to as body inspo. She mentioned how while taking fitness classes in the past, it was more common for fitness instructors to encourage the women to work out, but not for the sake of them and their health, but instead to “lose last night’s cake”. Instead, we as a society should be focused on helping women become the healthiest and happiest versions of themselves that they can be. It gave us a very interesting new idea of all the things that can affect women’s representation.

As we continue with our topic, this interview helped us a lot with a new perspective on how women’s body trends affect their mental and physical health. This interview was very informational and helpful and we are very grateful for the opportunity to speak with her. 

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