Blog #5 The Globalization of the American Concept of Beauty Leading to Mental Illness

             Is America spreading a low self-esteem disease all over the world?  Is this increase in insecurities contributing to a possible “crazy people” pandemic?  There are global arguments saying that America and its celebrities are causing people all over the world develop anorexia and bulimia to alter their bodies to look like the supermodels they see in advertisements.  The western idea of beauty has been a relevant issue in my life and I feel it is absolutely crucial to teens of my generation.  To this day when I go to the mall with my friends we look at the models on the product boxes and point out that no one has eyelashes like that, or perfectly shaved legs.  

            My small group talked a lot on Friday about the issues all over the world that especially girls are developing striving for that unachievable western flawless look that supermodels have in pictures.  I found Cindy Crawford’s quote really enlightening, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford”.  Thus, she was saying she doesn’t even look like how she does in her own pictures.  This is due to all of the computer editing and refining photo shop workers do along with advertisers for her endorsed products.  It was really interesting in the video when we watched how a magazine cover girl was formed from 4 different women – consequently creating “the perfect woman”.  This is a surprisingly popular technique used by many photo shop geniuses, you would never know that Jenny’s body is actually attached to Monica’s face, but with Heather’s lips and Stephanie’s ears.  All these girls are models but each one of them had something imperfect about them that needed to be fixed in order to make other women around the world feel ugly enough to buy the product.

            We need to train our brains to not be so highly susceptible to deception by big companies who are just trying to get at our insecurities.  This is why videos like the one we watched in class on Friday, and the Dove commercial are so important to have.  The people that say that you’re too fat, have thin hair, or need this new mascara to catch boys’ attraction and generally be considered attractive are just wanting you to buy their product to give them profit.  Making money is a huge part of what America was founded on, but we can’t corrupt the world’s mental health in order to get rich.  We must stop this pandemic before it gets out of control. 

Blog #4 Deeper into human rights

          After watching "The Story of Human Rights" I was surprised at how many people have no idea what the most basic rights they have are.  In the first few minutes of the video, the makers decided to conduct research on what average people thought human rights meant.  Interviewers went around city streets and asked people what the definition of human rights were, many people stared blank faced into the camera, or gave a response similar to my personal favorite, "the rights that humans have..."  I was slightly disgusted with society and myself when I realized that I probably would have said the exact same thing.   This was ultimately a wake up call for me as I witnessed that most humans remain in the dark when it comes to their given protections.

          There are 30 articles containing the granted rights documented in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Ratified at the end of World War II, some of the top listed rights include that everyone be recognized as a person before law, no one shall be held in slavery or servitude, and everyone has the right to move freely within their own state.  While this is just hardly 10% of the stated rights, I can find numerous flaws in the ways our world abides by these statements.  If this document was truly recognized by every country and everyone in the world, then why is there mistreatment of criminals and innocent people filling prisons, thousands of people enslaved even after the end to slavery, and why are people raided out of their homes everyday and forced to live somewhere designated for them in their own state.  Our freedoms have been invaded and controlled. It irks me that people have spent their time making such a document for it to be ignored by power-hungry leaders. 

          I'm curious to know why schooling, especially government classes, don't spend much time going deeper into human rights.  I think for self defense purposes everyone should know what their rights are as humans, and what the certain things are that no one, absolutely no one, can take away from them.  Perhaps a solution to ending the undermining of human rights would be more education, however, I say this hastily because I do not know if people are genuinely good.  Thus, the issue may be the wasted time on the document instead of our failure to follow it.