Visually Captivating.

Movies have one benefit over books. They reach a larger audience, easier. Otherwise, they fail in every comparison when it comes to the intent of telling a story through the mind of the author. A visual representation of an idea is unique to that individual, which is why when we read something, we all have a slightly different interpretation. In other words, the pictures displayed meant to represent someone’s vision, may fall flat as to what you would have depicted. Take a movie like Transformers. I personally would have thought of a different, smaller rendition, of the aliens as vehicles. I would have made them less human, more animal in nature. I wouldn’t have had them conversing with us as equals, but instead us to them like a master to its dog. Sure they could overpower us, but so can all sorts of animals we master. I think this could have added a depth to the characters and significance of the various story lines.

Visual representation of thought. 

A depiction of what is sexy is a whole other realm of distorted perception. Whether it be magazines, music videos, movies, TV shows, even commercials, what someone decided to depict as visually appeasing for selling their product, I would argue against. I would argue that the longest, thickest hair, thinnest body, with curves in the right area, a face so symmetrical a computer couldn’t have done better, is any sexier than the confidence of a woman to be herself.

Men have another beast to deal with. The desires are depicted by media as aesthetically pleasing, during the candles on both ends, a bad boy with a soft heart. There seems to be acceptable roles that we are expected to fall into thus pigeonholing us to a standard we might not agree with.

Guys, we must be adorned by those young females, even into our advanced age. 

Men do have underlying concerns however, when discussed on an individual basis. Men can admit, even jokingly, that they are self-conscious, and fear losing love or affection, something we are taught not to need after all. That is, if you go by movie’s rendition of the modern man. We are to be self-sufficient, reliable, rustic, taking love when it is available, but we could go without. As for the outside, our bodies, well, they need to be in shape too otherwise we are just another average, overweight Americans, bumbling around with our happy-go-lucky selves.

This is what love is supposed to look like, I guess. 

The women again are here today, gone tomorrow. Sadly, and yet we all contribute. We all want something more. We continue to feed off some new stimuli, no longer able to invest in one actress to satisfy our aesthetic needs. The greats who are able to continue a career past 30 have formed some sort of niche or hailed in the acting communities as a contender in any movie they are in. Meryl Streep. However, the bulk of the films, even if it really has no place, depicts women in this young, sexy role, where they are gone shortly after. Now, who’s to say they are complaining, after all, prolonged spotlight makes a person turn, so maybe the industry is doing them a favor by keeping their time in the limelight short. Maybe, or maybe we truly are as superficial as we seem and we need the newest, sexiest body to depict our internal, mostly sexual desires.

An American man can’t cry because they have a problem, they can’t be seen going to PTSD treatment, they can’t be seen “dieting” to lose that midsection fat. No way man, MEN eat meat and continue to be the Vikings of old, or at least our modern, masculine version of the original Vikings. Men have to be many things, things that might not come natural due to inadequacies or failure to meet expectations. Maybe the values of society and the values of modern man, don’t match up. Maybe what society wants from you, that you feel compelled to meet, aren’t really your desires. Maybe you go to the gym for obligation. You take a job due to increased finances. You fail to talk about certain things because you need to meet certain agendas with the certain people you surround yourself with.

Aesthetically speaking, men have a certain standard, however mentally there is one as well. The problem isn’t in what is visually pleasing for both men and women, but rather what the mindset of an individual is. For one person they could depict beauty as confidence and for another, where they are at in life, it could just be the symmetrical face and toned body. 

The written word allows for your interpretation of what that beauty is. Even if the words describe features to help paint an image, you are still in charge of the image you see when you read the words. I can guarantee it will vary from person to person, much like our own standard of beauty.

Body Image concerns can be more of a detrimental factor than people give credit to. If you are wanting more information on this external attempt to be something, click Here.