By Anju Aoki

 

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From studying in the media stream in CAP at UBC, I have had the chance to learn about the many different ways media affects us daily. As a woman, I was very shocked and interested in the ways media portrayed and objectified women... 

Although women are raising their voices to address problems such as anti-feminism, sexualization, and many more through media, it seems as though the ever-evolving forms of new media find new and more ways to continue to dehumanize women. My appropriation project is based on the ugliness in the portrayal, objectification, sexualization, idealization and dehumanization of women in media. It tells the story of a woman losing herself due to the ideologies of what it means to be the “perfect” woman portrayed through media.

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Color bars are merely television test patterns, but in this context I wanted the jarring and static look of it to represent the death of old media and the chaos of new media pervading our lives. I repetitively used the face of Barbie dolls to show the ugly message behind it. Although Barbie dolls are merely toys, the branding and image of Barbie dolls have been implanted into girls from a young age. The use of Barbie dolls in my project represents the objectification, beauty standards, and mass production of fake women.  The head stacking of Barbie heads display the many layers of false identities the woman has. Finally sitting on the brain is the true form of the woman, naked and bare. However, even her true form is disappearing as media pressures her to fit the standards of media’s portrayal of the perfect woman. Her true face is cut off from her body and is getting ready to be replaced with another false mask. The design of the skull god was inspired by the image of Indian gods with several heads and arms. In my project the skull god reflects the woman’s belief- like some people’s belief in religions and gods- in sacrificing her natural beauty and identity to fit the ideologies of women portrayed through media. The skull represents the death of individuality, and the Barbie mask the skull wears represents the false beauty pressured onto women. Its numerous arms and eyes reflect the consciousness of the mass of consumers of media behind each screen. The skull god is also holding a copy of its own Barbie mask towards the woman, luring her to wear it to match the idealization of women in media. The needles represent the addiction towards media like drugs. They also show a way in which women can not only mentally and psychologically change but physically change themselves through surgery to become closer to the standards of beauty. The pile of Barbie head dolls with duct tape on their eyes and mouths represent the mass of women who ultimately took the Barbie doll mask from the skull god and have entirely lost their true self and identity. Because they are now a product of the portrayal of women, everything they see, say, and believe are ultimately the beliefs of the mass of media and not from the self.