Monday, November 13, 2006

The “Friends” Dillema: How television demonstrates EVERYTHING

My roommate made a very keen observation yesterday, she was watching Friends on some channel that happened to play an episode from season one and then from season nine and she couldn’t believe the differences in their appearances. In season one the women were all pretty covered up, no revealing outfits, not too much makeup and they all looked to be a healthy weight. Contrastingly, in season nine the clothes were much tighter and more revealing, plenty of makeup and they all looked about ten pounds lighter and so toned that they must sleep in Pilates positions.

This happens with most all television shows; they can’t put anyone on TV, besides Queen Latifa and that other chick from Law and Order, who aren’t rail thin. And yes, skinny people look better on TV to us, but do that have to be soooooo skinny? The answer to that is Yes. They do. Because that is what we like, what we want and so that is what they give us. It is a never ending cycle. We want more accurately represented women on television, but then shows with less attractive people have lower ratings. Catch 22, we are just hypocrites.

As we have heard so many times, seeing these skinny women on television is horribly damaging to the teen self-image, but really, what can be done about it? How can we let kids know that certain messages are not intended to be literal, that it is just a show? Really I don’t think we can, the only hope is that parents and teachers can instill in children that television is no accurate representation of how you need to look or dress, and hopefully they can achieve this. We just have to adapt.

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