Week 1 : Day 3 : Statement of Purpose / Focus

While trying to narrow down the focus of the film, in order to come up with a thesis/argument, I stumbled upon a powerful, incisive passage from Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” that perfectly applied to the subject at hand.

To Friedan, the “Feminine Mystique” refers to the media campaign waged after WWII, telling American women that their noblest, most fulfilling goal would be to be mothers and housewives. In Chapter 9, entitled “The Sexual Sell,” Friedan expounds a powerful theory: that the number one social goal served by the “Feminine Mystique” was to ultimately boost the economy:

Why is it never said that the really crucial function, the really important role that women serve as housewives is to buy more things for the house. In all the talk of femininity and woman’s role, one forgets that the real business of America is business. But the perpetuation of housewifery, the growth of the feminine mystique, makes sense (and dollars) when one realizes that women are the chief customers of American business. Somehow, somewhere, someone must have figured out that women will buy more things if they are kept in the underused, nameless-yearning, energy-to-get-rid-of state of being housewives.

I found this passage incredibly pertinent to the subject of my film, because one could easily substitute the term “housewife” with “insecure.” 

Indeed, the central argument of my film is that by propagating images of flawless young women, the advertising industry, as well as print and broadcast media are serving the interests of dozens of industries: cosmetics, clothing, dieting (books, remedies, programs), plastic surgery; by making millions of women insecure about their bodies, needing hundreds of products to attain the fleeting ideal of beauty, they are creating perfect customers. To paraphrase Friedan’s “Somehow, somewhere, someone must have figured out that women will buy more things if they are kept insecure about their appearance.”

In “The Whole Woman” (one of my favorite books) Germaine Greer brought to light some scary statistics, saying that the vast majority of women have some form of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), a condition describing a person’s distorted image of his or her body, even when there may be nothing wrong with it:

As a way of inducing them to buy products of no use or value, women have been deliberately infected with BDD. Conditions that practically all women “suffer from” are spoken of as unsightly and abnormal, to make women feel that parts of their bodies, perhaps their whole bodies, are defective and should be worked on, even surgically altered.

Virtually every woman reached by advertising messages is affected, regardless of ethnic, demographic, or socio-economic group. And their messages are targeting younger and younger girls (statistics from 10 ago said that 80% of elementary school girls were on diets – and just last week the NYTimes talked about popular beauty treatments such as pedicures and manicures for 6-9 year olds). Even Friedan talked about it in 1963:

Like a primitive culture which sacrificed little girls to its tribal gods, we sacrifice our girls to the feminine mystique, grooming them ever more efficiently through the sexual sell to become consumers of the things to whose profitable sale our nation is dedicated.

It’s terribly depressing to think so little has changed in 45 years – it’s even far worse.

In order to counterbalance all these sad facts, and offer a solution, I would like to dedicate about 20-25% of the film to people, groups, programs promoting awareness / a healthy body image / all around confidence in women. Because I think real beauty has little to do with subjective standards and more with personality, confidence, and strength. That’s why I am dying to see the film “Girls Rock“ – hope it will make it to France sometime soon.