In Style Magazine Representation

In Style magazine is a sophisticated magazine aimed at young, working class women however, it is also suitable for teenage girls to be able to read and this magazine influences them too. This magazine is all about fashion, looking your best, diet plans, designer clothing and how to make sure you are staying a head of 'upcoming trends.' It places huge emphasis on having the best and latest clothing and even shows ways that you can look like a certain celebrity by comparing an outfit that they are wearing to clothes that working class people are able to buy. Even though these clothes are supposed to in fact be cheaper and more affordable than the clothes the celebrity is wearing they are actually almost just as expensive and in my opinion, completely unaffordable unless you have a very well paid job. This magazine creates negative stereotypes because it makes the readers believes that they have to have the most expensive, designer clothes in order to stay on top of the fashion world and in trend.

In Style magazine has strategically used certain colours, images and dialogue on their front cover to try and draw the viewer in. In style has attempted to relate their front cover to their target audience as much as they possibly can because as much as people try to say they don't judge a book by its cover, they definitely do with magazines. If it looks appealing from the outside, people are more inclined to purchase it, even if the articles inside aren't very good.

The picture of the magazine above actually uses slightly different colours and pictures on its cover and is different to the one that I analysed however I'm sure that the colour, images and dialogue were used for the same purposes.

In Style has used Anne Hathaway as their cover girl. Anne Hathaway is a very famous actress who their target audience would be familiar with. She has pale, milky skin, luscious, brown, curly hair and big pink lips. She tends to be what many would consider to be a stereotype of a 'high class' women/actress and actually looks more british rather than American.

The magazine editors have used the colours purple, silver, white and black. These colours were specifically used to make the magazine look 'high fashion' and for the upperclass viewer. This is because women associate these colours with certain stereotypes. Purple was probably used by the editors to make the cover appeal to women because purple is a stereotypically feminine colour that will catch a women's attention and make them look at the magazine. Purple is associated with royalty and it symbolises power, nobility, luxury and ambition. It also conveys wealth and extravagance and is associated with wisdom and creativity so stereotypically, these are all things that women want to be associated with. The colour silver was used to add an expensive and glamorous look to the cover which will make it more appealing to high class women. Black and white colours were used in the writing and background to make it look bold and standout to the eye to ensure that it will attract viewers.

There was only one other image used on the cover of In Style which was a silver ribbon. It is placed on the bottom right hand corner with a shiny, glossy effect. I personally think that it has been placed here to draw the reader in and make them want to open the page, especially because we associate ribbons with presents that need to be opened and In Style is trying to make the reader think that their magazine is a gift to them and will help them become more trendy and beautiful.

The stories that were featured on the cover were also used to try and attract the reader. The first stories that caught my eye on the cover were "New hair, new you. Cuts and colours to transform your look." And "How to make winter layers work and still look slim". This is a negative stereotype used by In Style magazine because they assume that their target audience is only concerned with image and they way they look. They used lots of words like 'slim' and 'transform' which will attract the stereotypical young woman or teenage girl because these are things that they can relate to as they are consistently unhappy with themselves and the way they look. Another story that is featured on the front cover which is used to attract a stereotypical women is "Luxury Designer Auction". This story associates with high class working women because it uses dialogue such as 'luxury' and 'designer', which tends to appeal to their target audience and makes women think that if they have these so called 'designer' items, they will fit in with what is expected of a women. The last story that is featured on the cover is "Anne Hathaway: Shines in the new seasons best looks."  In Style has specifically uses a celebrity that is well known to attract their readers. By saying the Anne "shines in this seasons best looks" it is indicating to women that in order for them to look their best they have to have/own what Anne Hathaway has and look the way that she looks. 

Inside the magazine there were over 90 different advertisements. They consist of 13 advertising makeup, 9 for skincare, 5 for hair products, 34 for clothing/jewellery, 9 for perfume, 3 for technology and 8 for other advertisements.

None of the products advertised are reasonably priced as they are mostly all designer and supposed to be of a high quality. By advertising such expensive products In Style makes women believe that in order for them to be beautiful, they have to have top of the range products and spend all of their money. Another strategy that In Style has also used, along with many other magazines is putting advertisements into their articles. For example; one article may be talking about how a specific designer rose to fame. Throughout the article there will be lots of references to products designed buy that particular designer and it will tell people how and where they can buy them. Not only In Style magazine, but the media in general makes young women in society feel as if the can never be perfect and in their advertisements they show these 'stereotypically perfect' models wearing expensive heels and lots of makeup and own the best products. This makes women feel as if they can never be perfect because they are constantly comparing themselves to the products and people shown in these magazines, this is a strategy that a lot of magazines like to use because it truly makes young women and teenage girls believe that they in order to be beautiful, they have to buy these expensive products. Not to mention most of the models that have been used for these advertisements have been re-touched or airbrushed. So it sets a completely unrealistic image for young woman and girls to compare themselves to.  

This magazine has offered many articles about how to become more stereotypically beautiful, skinny or even how to change the way you look to impress a guy. However, they haven't offered any articles about people, places or objects outside of their target audience. There are no articles in this magazine supporting human rights, people with disabilities, environment issues or even animal rights. It has only concentrated it's stories, advertisements and images for a specific group of people even though this group of young, wealthy, beautiful women is only a small portion of the world. In Style, along with many other fashion and gossip magazines do not want to put issues such as coping with a disability or how to keep the environment clean in their magazines because they simply do not care about these issues, well on paper at least. Magazines only put in articles, advertisements and images to gail audience appeal. They exploit women to make them feel as if they have to have the latest clothes to be liked or pretty. They in no way what so ever want to take a step out of line and put a new or different article in their magazine because it may cost them readers. This is a shame because generally people in society are completely unaware of some of the terrible issues that are happening within the world and if people want to read about these issues, they often have to buy an entirely different magazine and spend more money on something that they have usually not ever had to care about because it doesn't directly effect them. 

Even though In Style is a magazine that is mostly aimed at young, working class women it, along with many other magazines of the same genre, still have a major influence on teenage girls in society and how they feel about themselves. This is due to the fact that they feel as if they have to maintain the high standard of the way they look for virtually their whole life. In Style magazine and many magazines in general have a lot of expensive items of clothing, makeup, jewellery etc advertised in it. Because there are so many advertisements, In Style portrays this as 'normal' to teenage girls so they grow up and mature believing that they have to be perfect and own lots of expensive clothes.  It encourages teenage girls and even makes them believe that when they eventually have a job and earn a wage that they have to spend all of their money on looking their best and owning the most expensive products in order to stay perfect and beautiful, which is not something that we want society to believe is normal. 

Stupid Girls Representation

Stupid Girls - PINK

The song 'Stupid Girls' by PINK is one that not only has caught the immediate attention of teenage girls around the world, but has also summed up the trap that our entire world is now falling into, which is changing absolutely everything about ourselves to become 'stereotypically beautiful' and also the consequences of only living for an image.

At the beginning of the music video a little girl is shown sitting in a chair watching a television screen, wearing pigtails, normal looking clothes like a t-shirt and jeans and she is also seen with barbie dolls in her lap. Then when she turns on the television, a portrayal of an 'angel' pops up above her left shoulder and a 'devil' on her right. We assume that these 'portrayals' are going to tell her what is right and what is wrong, as this is what we associate the 'devil' and 'angel' with through stereotypes. 

The first scene on the television is made to look old fashioned because it is in black and white, there is also a close-up shot of a women shown dressed in very old glamourous, conservative clothing, wearing lots of makeup with her hair perfectly done. She is taking a class of young ladies and it shows her trying to teach them etiquette. This scene fits in well with the music video lyrics, which at this point say "Stupid girl, stupid girls, stupid girls, Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back. Porno Paparazzi girl, I don't wanna be a stupid girl" We realise when pink sings "Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back" that the symbolism of the lyrics is shown through the women who is trying to teach a class of young women how to act, just to impress a guy and be 'ladylike'. The little girl then also imitates what the women is teaching her class. This shows us as viewers the effect that media can have on people especially young and teenage girls. This small scene of a little girl copying what she sees on television has already had a huge impact on society because we can see the influence that media is having nowadays and the idea of 'because it's on t.v it makes it okay'. The women in the scene are shown as complete robots who are obsessed with the the 'perfect image', which is not something that society wants young girls and teenagers to aspire to.       

Then the next part of the video shows the devil above the girls shoulder lip-syncing the lyrics. It also shows how PINK has used costume to portray a stereotypical young women. She is seen stumbling around in oversized sunglasses, beads and a short, revealing dress. We are given the impression that this women is quite wealthy because she is able to afford nice clothes, jewellery etc. We also assume that she is very dumb because she walks straight into the clear glass door of the pet store. She then is seen tumbling into the pet store, where another women is shown, who is dressed the same and looks the like as her, so she is obviously here for the same reason.  PINK then grabs a small dog off the pet store shelf and is going to buy it. At this point in the video the lyrics say "They travel in packs of two or three,With their itsy bitsy doggies and their teeny-weeny tees Where, oh where, have the smart people gone? Oh where, oh where could they be?" This women that PINK acts out is seen to the the typical Hollywood diva. She is wearing girly clothes and looks famous. Because of what we have seen in the media we assume that she is only buying a little dog to look cool and fit in and that she doesn't actually want it, she is treating and using it more like a fashion accessory and wants to dress the dog up in matching outfits rather than actually look after it. Also printed on the pet cage that the dog is in are the words "stays younger longer". This gives us the idea that if PINK buys this little dog it is going to keep her in fashion, up to date and youthful too. She is acting out the consequences of only living for an image, which nowadays seems to be all that anyone is ever doing to stay 'stereotypically beautiful'.

The next scene in the video shows PINK playing a character who is sitting with her boyfriend in a bowling alley. They are getting along fine and talking to each other as any normal couple would do until, another girl walks into the bowling alley wearing an incredibly short, denim skirt and a very fitting shirt. A chose-up camera shot is shown on her chest to show that she has very large breasts. The boyfriends attention immediately goes from PINK, who is playing the girlfriend to the young women who just walked in with the 'massive tits'. PINK realises that her boyfriends attention is elsewhere and an extreme chose-up shot is shown on her pulling an "in case of emergency" tag that is attached to her shirt. As soon as she pulls this tag, it immediately blows up her boobs and makes them a lot bigger than the girl before. PINK'S boyfriend then looks back at her and sees that her breasts have enlarged and immediately, his focus is back on her. This is a typical stereotype that we see in the media  lot of the time. We assume that girls are more attractive if they have larger breasts and that 'size' is all guys care about. This negatively portrays women in this situation because it is showing that we are giving into having a fake, false image. It shows that we have to constantly 'outdo' one anther to essentially win the guy over. This specific scene shows that PINK'S character has given into stereotypes and it proves that she has needed to change her image in order to suit her boyfriend and to only please him and not herself. It also makes us as viewers assume that everything is just one big competition and that young women are constantly fighting a battle to win over someone else's attention. Once again they are succumbing to the stereotype of the perfect body. 

Not only does this scene negatively portray women but also men too. The stereotype of men only liking girls with big boobs has been completely over-used. The guy in this scene is made to look like a bad boyfriend and also gives us the impression that he is a complete jerk because of the fact that he only cares about looks. Because we have seen this in the media and it is a common stereotype, it makes men in general look really bad and that all they care about is the fact that a women's looks have to appeal to him in order for him to actually like her but because we have seen this repeated in the media so frequently, it  makes it hard to realise that this isn't actually always the case and that it is just a stereotype. However, it still gives us an incredibly negatively impression of men and that we as teenage girls and young women have to change ourselves to impress them. 

The last scene in the video that truly shows how low girls have placed themselves in order to gain a 'perfect body' is where PINK is playing a character with bulimia, which is a common eating disorder that people suffer from. There is actually an interlude in the middle of the video especially for this scene to show its significance. PINK walks into a bathroom saying "OMG I totally had more than 3oo calories today, it was so not sexy", while another girl is using a tooth brush to make herself throw up. After the girl is done using the toothbrush PINK then asks "can I borrow that" and immediate shoves it down her throat to make herself throw up too. This is something that I feel the audience, particularly teenage girls can relate to because now, a lot more girls are suffering from eating disorders in order to get a 'stereotypically perfect' body. The lengths that girls go through to try and make themselves beautiful are absolutely absurd.  Through this scene in the video, women are shown being humiliated as they succumb to procedures and lifestyles in attempts to produce a 'stereotypically beautiful' body image. Girls use their toothbrushes to bring up their food in the bathroom, which is something that is not okay but is happening because of stereotypes in the media. Girls believe that in order for them to be liked, popular and beautiful they have to be skinny and they will go to any length in order to try and retain this. 
  At the end the video, a close up is shown specifically on the angel and devil above the little girls shoulders. The 'devil' is telling the little girl to go and play with make up, clothes and Barbie dolls, while that 'angel' is telling her to go and play with a football outside. She eventually opts to play with a football rather than play with dolls. This teaches society an incredibly valuable lesson because it shows how we are able to overcome stereotypes and perfectionism.

Despite seeing all of these tremendous scenes on the television the little girl overcomes all of this and the impressions that they give her and goes outside to play with a ball, which is something that you would expect a child of her age to do, rather than sitting around watching inappropriate shows on t.v or experimenting with lots of make-up. It shows us that we do not need to destroy ourselves in order to retain the 'perfect body'. I personally am incredibly relieved that someone like PINK has finally spoken out and said something about the mindless epidemic of unhealthy girls and has addressed the on -oing issue that promotes perfectionism. Her video shows how in the end, people are capable of being strong, independent young girls who don't need the 'perfect, beautiful body' to be happy. 

PINK'S interpretation of what is happening today in society can be compared to many other music videos of the same genre. There are a lot of artists that influence young teenage girls such as Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato and many others. Because of the way they present themselves and how they act in their videos, it has us as young women believe that being skinny and beautiful with perfect teeth, perfect hair and perfect skin is normal, when in actual fact it is all completely unrealistic. Because of how the media is able to re-touch and Photoshop these girls in their videos, it also makes it virtually impossible to look like them, yet we as teenage girls are still constantly trying to reach the un-attianable goal of perfectionism.  


Another music video that could be compared to PINK'S 'Stupid Girl's' is Taylor Swift's 'You Belong with Me'. Again in this music video you can see very similar concepts to what PINK has used in her video. Taylor Swift plays a 'stereotypically beautiful' cheerleader who wears short skirts, lots of makeup, her hair is always done nicely and of course she has the 'handsome' boyfriend. You could say that she basically gets everything that she wants. 

There is also another character that Taylor plays who is considered to be a stereotypical 'nerd'. She wears glasses, sneakers and plays in a band which 'stereotypically' is not considered to be cool at all. Taylor Swift shows in her video these two characters, the

cheerleader and the nerd, both fighting for the attention of the same guy. This concept is also exactly what PINK has used in her music video. This is shown in the scene, which I have mentioned earlier in the post, where PINK is fighting for the attention of her boyfriend and uses 'inflatable boobs' in order to retain it. This one again gives teenage girls that they must change their appearance in order to get the guy to like them and be accepted. 

The 'You Belong with Me' music video consists of a range of shots showing the popular cheerleader and the nerdy girl with they guy that they both like. Taylor Swift has given the audience hints throughout her video that the guy actually secretly likes the nerdy girl instead of the pretty, popular cheerleader however, he never shows it in public or takes any action to try and be with the nerdy girl until the end of the video.

At the beginning of the music video I was quite impressed that the 'stereotypically beautiful girl' doesn't actually get they guy and that someone else more realistic, and that a character that teenage girls will find easier to relate to does instead. However it wasn't until the end of the video that I realised how much of a big joke Taylor Swift's video actually was. She has tried to make the audience believe that the guy likes the 'nerdy' girl who isn't as stereotypically beautiful, in stead of the 'pretty', 'popular' cheerleader. He is portrayed to the audience as too shy to ever admit that he likes the nerdy girl, until the final scene of the video at the 'Homecoming Dance'. There is a two-shot used to show the pretty, popular cheerleader with her handsome boyfriend at the dance. The cheerleader looks very stereotypically beautiful and perfect and is wearing a bright red revealing dress. The colour red was probably used to symbolize 'evil' and in the media this often tends to be the representation of the 'pretty popular girls' who get that ever they want.  

Then the stereotypically 'nerdy' girl walks into the room and catches the attention of everyone in the room. They all stop to stare at her in awe. No longer does she look like stereotypical nerd, with glasses, who plays in a band. Instead, she has her hair out, is wearing lots of makeup and a long, silky, white dress. The colour white is also a symbol of purity and innocence, so Taylor Swift is trying to make the character look innocent to the viewers. But she has actually transformed into a representation of a young girl who looks like what we as teenagers would consider to be 'stereotypically' beautiful. A close-up shot is shown on the guys face when he sees what the so called 'nerdy girl' now looks like at the dance. His face immediately lights up with pleasure and instantly, he leaves the cheerleader who he was dancing with previously and goes over to the newly transformed nerdy girl.

I strongly believe that this ending of Taylor Swift's music video is a complete contradiction to the rest of her video and it proves to society that even celebrities can succumb to the pressure of stereotypes. Taylor Swift thinks she is making girls more confident and helping them with her videos but in actual fact she is just creating false hope for them and making them feel as if they have to be stereotypically beautiful to be liked. She has tried to portray to the audience that you don't have to be stereotypically beautiful to get the guy however, in the end the nerdy girl actually changes everything about herself to appeal to the male which is an extremely negative message to portray to society. This concept was also shown frequently used in PINK'S 'Stupid Girls' video too however, her lyrics were actually making fun of girls that do these things to themselves and that it is completely unnecessary to change yourself to suit someone else. Where as Taylor Swift is trying to make girls believe that they can get a guy if they change the way they look completely to suit the male eye. The influence that these ideas and messages have on teenage girls can be seriously harmful however, unfortunately they are still being used just to gain audience appeal because at the end of the day, it is an artists job to make their own living and they aren't going to create a video that will not appeal to their target audience. I believe that it's a shame that artists have to revert back to this representation of the skinny, completely unrealistic, stereotypically beautiful, girl in order to get views and make money. This representation has been used many times before in lots of music videos and does not in any way give any positive messages to the society and still encourages self doubt and unworthiness.

Pitch Perfect Representation

'Pitch Perfect' is a comedy movie about an about an all-female, acappella group called the Barden Bella's, who thrive off singing traditional female pop songs and having perfect looks, all while attending college. After a disasterous fail in last year's national acappella final, the Barden Bella's have to regroup and are now attempting to win the competition that in the past, has only been won by all-male acappella groups. The main character Becca is an independent, aspiring DJ with no interest in the college life what so ever. But after she meets a guy called Jesse, from the Barden Bella's rival all-male a cappella group, the Treble Makers, she begins to realise that being the traditional, all-female group that they have been in the past will not get her and her fellow Bella's the placing that they deserve. She gains a new outlook and takes it upon herself to help the Barden Bella's to find their new look and sound to get back into the competition to win. 

I personally found that Pitch perfect is an incredibly humorous movie and I loved watching it. However, as the movie progressed I began to realise how much it actually relies on stereotypes to get people to laugh and how these stereotypes affect not only me personally, but also other teenage girls and young woman around the world. What we see on television, in the newspapers and magazines can effect our choices, the way we act and the way we think immensely. The media stereotype people all the time and portray them in a certain way in order to gain popularity or audience appeal. They make people believe that they have to have certain things or look a certain way to be cool and accepted. However after watching this movie I soon found that this stereotype of 'looking prefect' and 'fitting in' is actually the exact opposite to what happens in Pitch Perfect. 

At the start of the movie we see how costumes is used with the Barden Bella's to portray them as a group of beautiful, skinny, model like girls with perfect hair, perfect teeth and perfect skin. There are close-up camera shots used to show that they are all dressed in matching outfits which are tight and show off their bodies to the viewers. There is not a single hair out of place and they also all have perfectly applied makeup and just look very feminine in general. This stereotype that Pitch Perfect has portrayed to their viewers at the beginning of the movie has given teenage girls and young women the message that looking like the Barden Bella's or similar is normal and that in order to be popular, pretty or even liked you must make yourself look the least like yourself as possible. This can have an extremely detrimental effect on society, particularly as teenage girls because we are led to believe that we have to look like this and act feminine to be accepted by anyone and everyone. This can not only create self-doubt but also self-harm too. Because of these stereotypes we often find now that a lot of teenage girls are changing themselves to become this so called 'beautiful' which actually isn't realistic or retainable at all.

The lengths that teenage girls go to to become beautiful are outrageous. Eating disorders, unhealthy diets, calorie counting, wearing excessive amounts of makeup, hair extensions, revealing clothing, painfully high shoes and some even go as far as plastic surgery to make themselves look 'stereotypically beautiful'. Now I'm not saying that people who make these decisions are complete idiots because everyone is entitled to their own opinion. However, I do feel that the media has set the expectations of how teenage girls and young women should look way to high! It is completely unrealistic that everyone can look  stereotypically beautiful and the same as these pretty, skinny girls in the media, like the Barden Bella's. We as young adults need to realise that it is not acceptable to constantly compare ourselves to what we seen on a screen or in a magazine and we need to start accepting who we are and accomplish greater things than trying to look like a size 0 girl on a glossy page. 

However towards the end of the movie, Pitch Perfect actually did away with these 'perfect girl' stereotypes and made it a little more realistic. Instead of using pretty, skinny girls as the main members of the Barden Bella's, they decided to take a different approach and use other girls who aren't deemed to be as stereotypically beautiful but are all unique in their own ways. The Barden Bella's changed their look from the perfect, skinny, fake-happy girls to a more crazy and wild group of young women who prove to the audience that you don't need to be the skinniest, look the prettiest or stay traditional to win the a cappella competition. The Bella's changed from wearing all matching outfits, hair, makeup and routines to a more wild approach. Close-up camera shots show that the new members of the Bella's are not all skinny, and what is considered to be  stereotypically beautiful, they are seen to be pretty in their own ways and all wear their own individual outfits. I think that the decision to change the way the Barden Bella's looked was a good example to teenage girls because the can now see that you don't have to be perfect to fit in. However, even though Pitch Perfect did try and mix things up a bit and portray the Barden Bella's as the 'underdogs' who surprised everyone with their looks and different routines, there were still many stereotypes that were used 'just for laughs' and portray negative ideas and messages to society through the new Barden Bella's characters. 

A majorly stereotypical character that Pitch Perfect has used is Fat Amy. Fat Amy is one of the leading female characters in the Barden Bella's. I found Fat Amy's portrayal in the movie as the 'funny fat girl' hilarious, however this is actually seen to be a typical stereotype and it is used a lot in the media to gain audience appeal. In one of the first scenes of the movie, certain dialogue was used to introduce her to the viewers. This character is seen introducing herself as Fat Amy to two original members of the Barden Bella's, as they are wanting to recruit new members. When Amy was asked what her name was she instantly replied "Fat Amy" as if it was an ordinary, simple name. The Bella's then replied "You call yourself Fat Amy?" And she replies, "Yeah, so twig bitches like you don't do it behind my back." My instant reaction to this scene of the movie was laugher. I thought that it was hilarious that Fat Amy was so upfront and real about herself and her body size, she didn't care about what other people thought about her and I thought this was great as I am not actually used to seeing this a lot in real life, particularly with being a teenage girl.

However, as the movie progressed, I began to doubt the "funny" stereotype of Fat Amy's character. I initially thought that it was great to portray Fat Amy as the large, funny girl because she is embracing her body shape and doesn't care what anyone thinks about her. But now I realise that even though she is indeed a consistently hilarious character who isn't ashamed of her body, the movie Pitch Perfect actually relies on these 'used' assumptions of fat people for easy laughs. At one particular point in the movie, Amy lies on the floor and wriggles her legs around calling it "horizontal running" because she is too lazy and doesn't want to run like everyone else.
Even though this was somewhat funny, it has given society the impression that fat people are just plain lazy. This is a stereotype that we have seen the media use over and over again. Although it is funny, it also negatively portrays not only Fat Amy's character but also large people in general. It completely misrepresents them and it gives everyone in society the impression that fatter people are all too lazy to put in any effort to do exercise. This is not always the case because some people are physically un able to do exercise, but because of their size, what we have seen and how they have been represented in the media, people stereotype them as lazy. It also gives a sense of 'false confidence'. Fat Amy's character is confident with her body and that is great, however she is only one person represented on a screen for the world to see. I am sure the majority of larger people around the world are extremely unhappy and self conscious about their bodies and would never want to introduce themselves as "Fat Bob" or "Fat Sally", but because of what we have seen in the media we assume that this is funny and that all fat people are generally funny. 

Even though Pitch Perfect is trying to make a point across that you don't have to be skinny and beautiful to be liked, it is also extremely hypocritical of them to use a 'fat' person as a funny character because as a viewer, I can almost guarantee I wouldn't have found Fat Amy's jokes half as funny if she wasn't fat. It is sad that movie makers have to rely on stereotypes such as this in order to make money and sell their product.

The same goes for the skinny, perfect Barden Bella's. The movie would not have been able to be made without their stereotypically beautiful, appealing image at the beginning of the film. When I first watched this movie I did actually think that it was great because they introduced new types of characters to the scenes who weren't 'stereotypically beautiful', but now I realise that this movie is actually a completely unrealistic representation of normal people and that even though the characters may not necessarily have been the skinniest, or the prettiest, they still were reliant on stereotypes to be funny and make the movie Pitch Perfect into a successful one.

The effects that stereotypical movies like this have on teenage girls in society are immense. They often are all of the same genre and all lead to very negative consequences and consistently make girls unhappy about themselves because they do not fit into the 'criteria' of what a popular, pretty, skinny girl should be like. The stereotype of becoming the 'perfect girl' is not only portrayed in Pitch Perfect but also in many other movies aimed at teenage girls. Some of these other movies consist of; Mean Girls. This is a movie about a young teenage girl who was home schooled for all of her life and has recently integrated into an American public high school. As she enters the school for the first time the 16 year old encounters the psychological warfare and unwritten social rules that teenage girls face in society. The ideas shown in Mean Girl's are very similar to those in Pitch Perfect. This movie also portrays a similar message to society which is 'looking perfect and being pretty is all that matters'. Another movie that also stereotypes teenage girls and makes them unhappy about themselves is WILDCHILD. In this movie the spoilt, Malibu brat Poppy Moore has pushed her rich, usually absent Dad over the edge. When his patience wears out he sends her to England to an all-girls boarding school thinking it will straighten her out. However, on the first day she makes enemies with most of her dorm mates, even when they try to be nice to her.

Unwilling to accept the strict regime of the school, she decides to misbehave in order to try and get herself expelled. The only reason she actually decides not to leave the school is because of the appealing feature of the Head Mistresses son Freddie, who she ends up falling in love with. Once again this is a movies portraying completely stereotypical messages like Mean Girls or Pitch Perfect as it makes girls believe that in order for them to be liked and popular they either have to change absolutely everything about themselves, or get the guy to like them. This genre of movies all portray the same message to society and the ideas that are shown in the movies are certainly not positive ones that we as teenage girls should be aspiring to. Unfortunately because of stereotypes in the media, this is what our generation and surrendered to, which is constantly comparing ourselves and competing against one another to look perfect.