Mad Men Glamorizes Woman's Incapabilities and Still Glamorized Today.

According to the hit series Mad Men, women acting incapable was glamorous to men in America in the 1960’s and even currently.  After watching only a few episodes of this show it is very clear to me that it was expected that a woman acted as if she could not do anything but care for her family.  Even common sense was frowned upon for women.  I find it kind of disturbing that people around the country are eating this show up and not even realizing half of the demeaning remarks that are made to women.  Fashion is, in a way, a cover up for what is really going on in the show.  Sure the women look all pretty and the men all sexy, but the way they are acting women all little and inferior and men all rude and dominant in my opinion, this is unattractive.  Through this show and many other sources children are getting their eyes on the way society treats women.  Even though it’s fifty years later the show is still interesting and in a way still happening today.  Teenagers who watch this current show and even though it depicts the past feel a need to live by it.  I don’t think it was necessarily trying to portray the image as socially correct but they sure as hell did a good job glamorizing it.  If men fell over me every time I acted like I didn’t catch on to their games and acted pleased with the lowest position possible even if I was smartest than most of the top men I may fall into it.  From the way the character Peggy was first introduced the audience could tell she was well educated and self confident.  But by the time the men in the office get around to her it’s as if she’s almost beaten down.  Many times in the show Peggy knows more than her own good but she often gives into her temptation of wanting to be liked.  When Peggy took a particular trip to the gynecologist it was clear that it wasn’t something she wanted to do.  She was reading a book called “It’s you wedding night.” It is clear on her face that she doesn’t want to give in to what will make her popular at the office but it’s what she has to do to be idealized.  The doctor comments that, “easy women don’t find husbands.” Peggy responds “I understand doctor I really am a responsible person.”   Peggy understands that in the social world it is difficult to act as someone you are not which is why, even though she is unmarried and getting birth control pills, she still wants to remind the doctor (and herself) that she is responsible.  The very next day Peggy gives herself up again to the media’s depiction of glamour and acts incapable of her own say and hooks up with in her eyes a superior man who she works for, Pete Campbell.  I am very disappointed in women who are clearly smart and give in and demean themselves so low just because of what a man says.  In my eyes the men were scared.  They said things and used their power to put out ideas that destroyed women’s self-esteem.  They didn’t want to be showed up by a girl so they made it unattractive to be smart or powerful or strong.  They didn’t want their wives to leave them no matter how many times they cheated on them so they treated divorced women awfully and made it public that if you left your husband no one else wanted you.  Men stick together back each other up when all women do is stab each other in the backs.  Women often times backed up men anyways no matter how wrong and hurtful the opinions stated were.  Betty was the “perfect” person.  She had it all two cute kids a handsome husband and a beautiful home, (what else could a girl want?)  In an earlier episode Betty knew how awfully her friends had treated the divorced woman, Helen Bishop, who was new to the neighborhood.  So when Helen asked Betty to babysit her kids Betty was a little hesitant and worried about helping Helen out.  Betty finally agreed to come over and help but only because she envied this woman’s independence (I mean wouldn’t?)  It’s amazing to me how cautious women are about helping each other out because of what might be said about you. While men don’t second guess helping each other out.  In my opinion, from the 1960’s when the show took place and 2012 when the show aired things haven’t changed much and that’s why I think it’s such a hit even fifty years later.  Men decide what they want from women and do all they can to drill it into women’s minds that thats what they want too.  Men have such high roles in the fashion industry deciding not only women’s fashion but also their own.  If men can make super uncomfortable and unrealistic styles for women why don’t women do the same for men?  Women still have a long way to go in getting back at men, but I think Mad Men is a good reminder that we’re not quite there yet and we need to keep working at it.

What is Glamour to the Media?

            Women are conflicted everyday from looking at the media and feeling that they have to be “naturally beautiful” and they have to use many products to become so.  According to most magazines being naturally beautiful does not mean waking up and going to school/work looking beautiful from what genes you were given.  It means waking up at the crack of dawn to put layers and layers of make-up on so that no one can see an inch of real skin.  Not to mention the fact that each layer is another fifty bucks, who has that kind of money to spend?  As a child I believed that I was naturally beautiful.  I believed there was such a thing, but the older I get and the more media corrupts my life I realize that there really isn’t such a thing anymore.  Girls and guys alike are brainwashed into believing that the “too-small-for-a-real-size” girls are what everyday women are “supposed” to look like.  I don’t know about you but a having a unique shape SHOULD make you feel like a real woman.  Even the women who are fake enough to make it on the magazine covers still need “fixing.”  In an article I saw from Glamour magazine a quite glamourous (might I say so myself) girl(model) came in for her photo shoot no make-up, and the make-up artist completely transformed her into looking completely fake.  I personally believe that producers and editors would make quite an effect by using a woman who wasn’t so fake and letting men know that “hey, my girlfriend isn’t so ugly after all!”

            When I read my magazines all I can think of is SIMULATION!  These covers are seen my millions of people whether they want to or not.  Even standing in line at the grocery store I find my eyes (and many others) wander over to the glamorous woman on the cover (most likely in a seductive pose).  I was wondering if this really affected me.  Women and even girls believe that they need make-up to go throughout their everyday routines.  They try so hard to look like a hyper-real depiction of a real woman.  In the 1960’s woman began seeing psychiatrists because they believed their was truly something wrong with themselves for not being happy striving to be this hyper-real woman.  Although a lot of attention has been drawn to the fact that women can be “whoever they want to be,” they still aren’t given the same respect is they don’t “dress the part” (literally).  This problem has not gone away.  Women all over the world feel pressured by these magazines to “go down a couple sizes” or buy the latest product to make them look, in my opinion way too young.  Woman of all ages have different types of beauty.  I feel the natural beauty of looking aged and wise and a full life lived is hidden behind the false advertisement that “no matter how old you are you must look 25.” I believe men must feel disappointed after seeing so many models look the same exact size with all the right proportions and skin and hair perfect when they see the women around them they don’t look the same. Even men are brainwashed into thinking that every woman all the time should be looking “hot.” When the truth of the matter is that the woman they believe to be “perfect” is just a computer’s depiction of the model.  In the end I believe media has a negative on both men and women.  Women are trying too hard to become these hyper-real models while men are constantly disappointed that their woman’s skin isn’t always smooth and blemish free and that real women’s weight fluctuates daily.  If a popular magazine such a Glamour showed real untouched woman, everyday women would feel much better about themselves while their boyfriends know how lucky they are to have such real, beautiful girlfriends.

            I would LIKE to believe that I can overcome this feeling of wanting perfection at anytime I please but I am not sure that is quite possible.  Even people who claim they have “their own style” still are affected by what media deems “in.”  No matter how hard people try to steer clear of these pressuring ads it is quite difficult.  Advertisers at experts at placing luring magazine covers and gigantic billboards in strategic spots that are sure to have its intended consumers: EVERYONE! Sure it’s difficult to avoid these advertisement but even so do they really effect me? Everyone has had an experience when they hear a very convincing voice on the radio or an infomercial where after it was done no matter how useless it is to you, you still beg your mother that its only $19.95! As we get older we realize that the super fast voice, that we could never understand as a child, explains how expensive the item really is and how dangerous and bad quality it may be.  But still no matter how much logic we use and tell ourselves that we don’t need it somewhere we feel like that child and want to buy it so very much.  No matter how much someone tries to use logic these ads of beautiful women is what leads us to have low self confidence and ache for something that we often forget isn’t real.  Is their any hope of the world ever able to rid itself of these negative images or are we just beginning our downfall to hyperrealism?