Media saturation

The public is very influenced by the powerful institutions of today's society, this is shown from popular artists like Boyonce and Rhianna and how they have changed their appearance from their traditional beauty ideal and now conforms to the Western ideal.

The public are bombarded with images to form their ideal self out of, the basic needs of our modern beauty ideals are to be light skinned, straight hair and white teeth. To be different isnt looked upon as beautiful, however there are different cultural institutions that reflect the beauty ideals of the different modern lifestyle such as;

These two represent the select part of society that differs from the tastes of the norm, so the beauty ideals in these types of magazines vary unlike the magazines below;

however there are many magazines that only reflect the wants of the mainstream homogeneous beauty ideal. These 'Lads Mags' have been filled with the 'ideal' woman for men, they conform with the typical western beauty ideals of being skinny, big bust, straight hair, lots of make up and skimpy lingerie. However i have noticed that there has been a shift from classic 'pin up's' to a more Hispanic look, Eva Mendes has been the leading model/actress who is shown in the 'Maxim' above and below;

The common saying is that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' which would allow each person to hold their own beauty ideals and reject those of others. Today's media saturated society has compromised the thought of an individual being able to judge beauty, a constant beauty ideal is upheld by those who own cultural making institutions.

To me (an 18 year old white male) who has grown up in today's media saturated society i have a beauty ideal that is portrayed in 'Nuts' and 'Maxim', however in our increasingly post modern world i also have my own personal beauty ideals where my beauty ideal doesn't involve race.