Narcissism as Liberation– questions.

1.)    Susan Douglas uses the butt and thigh as tools to illustrate the assumptions and actualities of womanhood. In the 1980s, a round, firm buttock/thigh served as an accomplishment in itself. Accomplishments within the workplace or at home were secondary to achieving a shapely bottom. Clearly, if you have a fat ass, you contribute nothing to society. The womanly assumptions conveyed by the media are that the smoother your face, butt, and thighs are the more actively you pursue success; the more actively you pursue success, the closer you are to being “as good as” a man. Of course, all women want to be the supreme beings that men are. Douglas rejects these unrealistic toned thighs and butts, however she does not denounce exercise. She believes that exercise is a great way to reduce stress, and become stronger and healthier. What she condemns is “sexuality over fitness”.  Corporations found that they could make a larger profit off of beauty rather than fitness with the assumption of women care more about the way they look than the way they feel. Though some women submit to these media standards, Douglas refuses to. She wears her wrinkles with pride: “a woman’s facial lines are the story of her life…. They’ve tracked my joys and sorrows, my failures and successes, and I’m supposed to chop them off so I can look like an empty vessel, a bimbette?” A true image of a woman to Douglas is an image of a woman with “orange peel” skin and bags under her eyes, not wearing her age with sadness and regret, but with acceptance and pride.

2.) Deconstruction is the process in which we look at advertisements and see them for what they are:  the digitally enhanced skin of young and skinny models and pseudo-scientific facts, all wrapped up in a corporate media package. Even though the media is fully responsible for these lying advertisements, we as individuals must use the deconstruction of these ads to determine the meaning of our own womanhood. However, advertising is a business, cosmetics companies continue to make millions of dollars. It’s essentially their job to, for lack of other words, brainwash women into thinking they need make up, and then charge them an arm and a leg for it. Women don’t want to look old or tired because the media predominantly portrays beauty by using young models. Therefore, middle age women who want to look beautiful will pay any amount to look like the models that have been thrown in their faces repeatedly. Douglas explains that this emergence of narcissism occurred during the Reagan era as a solution to forget the political (which the common man could do nothing about) and to focus on self (which can be easily remedied by the individual). Since the 1980s, narcissism has only expanded with the aid of technology. With the growing popularity of the Internet, movies, and television, more and more skinny models are being shoved in our faces; and though we are capable of deconstruction, the overwhelming prevalence of this advertising brainwashing has inhibited our ability to deconstruct each ad.  Deconstruction is the only thing that keeps the image of the “real woman” alive, without it the concept of beauty would be objective. The media is essentially stealing away the beauty from the eye of the beholder and instead pours the same image of beauty into everybody’s eyes.