Your calendar says that you’ve only got 3 more weeks until Spring Break. Whenever you turn on the television, MTV, BET, and VH1 are playing clips of last year’s Spring Break events. As you skim through the channels, you catch a clip of BET’s annual “Spring Bling” extravaganza; a show that pays particular attention to the prettiest girls with the most toned bodies.
If that’s not enough, your television bombards you with info-mercials that emphasize the importance of having a great body and how they can provide you with an overnight transformation via weight loss pills, ab loungers, and suction bands. Well, you don’t need all of that, right? You stand in front of a full length mirror and realize that your stomach is not as tight as all of the women on TV, your thighs look gigantic, and your boobs aren’t big enough!
Are you panicking yet? Ahhh yes, just as I suspected. But that’s okay because you’ve created a master plan! You won’t eat any carbs or calories for the next few weeks and you’ll hit the gym everyday. There’s nothing wrong with that. After all, you do want to look like the girls on MTV and all of your friends are doing the same. So technically, that makes it right, right? NOT!
We’re happy that you’ve taken the time to read this article, because this was written especially for you. Yes, YOU! This article is not going to spit info-mercial-like solutions at you to make a quick and easy profit off of the young teenager looking for a get-thin scheme. In contrast, we plan on informing our readers of the dominant ideologies present within many of our television programs and how beauty and body image ideals become conducive to many of the insecurities present within many teenagers today.
Particularly, we plan on analyzing John Fiske’s article, “Television Culture” and “the way television is constructed using codes of representation that are invisible to viewers but shape everything they see” (Fiske 1274). After we’ve educated our readers, we will propose healthy solutions to lose excess weight, not as a means to conform to ideals of beauty and body image, but to create a more healthy and informed individual.
“Television broadcasts programs that are replete with potential meanings, and…it attempts to control and focus this meaningfulness into a more singular preferred meaning that performs the work of the dominant ideology” (Fiske 1274)
John Fiske’s statement is valid and many of his assertions are prevalent within many forms of Spring Break programming today. For instance, MTV’S “Spring Break 2010” displays images of beautiful men and women between the ages of 18-25, dancing in skimpy clothes to the hottest rappers and singers. The program is taped in Panama City, FL on Panama Beach and each clip depicts the weather as sunny and extremely hot. The people are often sweaty and intoxicated as well.
Television broadcasts, such as MTV’S “Spring Break 2010” and BET’S “Spring Bling” are “replete with potential meanings” via all of these images. In this sense, Spring Break programs such as this one attempt to define and place ideologies on Spring Break. After viewing this program, one may assume that in order to have fun on Spring Break, one must look like, act like, be intoxicated like, and be in a similar location as the people depicted on the television program. Together, these ideas of beauty, behavior, and location create one “dominant ideology” which is that of the Spring Break experience.
Television, then, becomes one of the many mediums that assist in the circulation of such dominant ideologies. Beauty ideals become encoded within and associated with the “dominant ideology” of the Spring Break experience. Bikinis, beautiful hair, and ridiculously gorgeous bodies become standards of beauty that are placed on the Spring Break experience. In turn, young women feel that they must conform to these ideals of beauty as a means of preparation so that they can enjoy their Spring Break experience.
However, television is not solely responsible for the dominant ideologies placed upon Spring Break. Television is just a medium for the “codes” that are upheld within American culture. Fiske defines a code as “a rule governed system of signs, whose rules and conventions are shared amongst members of a culture, and which is used to generate and circulate meaning for that culture” (Fiske 1275).
In this sense, codes found within television are only a product of the beauty ideals that are upheld within society. For centuries, Western European ideologies have influenced American perceptions of beauty, and media favoritism towards all things white, slim, and blonde.
These original ideals have branched off into more modern ideals of beauty that still favor the slim, and light woman. Spring Break programs also use camera to assist in the emphasis of such codes and ideals of beauty. For instance, the camera may zoom in on a beautiful woman’s stomach or buttocks to create an “intimate, comfortable relationship with the characters on the screen” (Fiske 1277).
The female viewer feels a sense of pressure to conform to this image because the television depicts this beautiful woman as “the girl next door”. After all, many of the women on forms of Spring Break programming are not famous. This lack of notoriety, in terms of fame, increases the young woman’s desire to conform to such images because, after all, the woman on television is “normal”, holding no celebrity status or recognition. She thinks to herself, “If the girl next door has a six pack, then why can’t I”?
MTV and BET’s use of the camera work “objectively” present these construed and images of Spring Break as reality. Viewers often times forget that the college students, location, and celebrities have all been planned and chosen by MTV as a means to uplift the “dominant ideology” placed on the Spring Break experience. These networks often times edit out rain, or people that are not as attractive, or people who fail to fit these ideals of beauty. For instance, the heavier chick, whose image is more realistic, will get much less camera time (if she even receives any), than the blonde bombshell who is a size two.
So, before you begin to diet or exercise profusively, consider the claims made my John Fiske and the role that television plays in upholding ideals of beauty and cultural codes. Spring Break programs are edited and planned to conform to the “dominant ideology” of the Spring Break experience, and are quite unrealistic in nature. Below, we have attached some healthy methods of diet and exercise, not for transformation, but for an overall healthier you.
1. Add an hour of moderate aerobic exercise training to your daily routine. Walking is ideal, because it meets the needs of people at every fitness level and doesn't require equipment or training.
2. Drink eight glasses of water each day. Water keeps you from feeling dehydrated, which you might mistake for an ice cream craving.
3. Eliminate all alcoholic beverages from your diet. Alcohol contains seven empty calories per gram, and drinking unnecessarily stimulates your appetite.
4. Initiate a weight-training regimen for your arms three times a week. If you have time to weight train other areas of the body that's a bonus, but arms show definition faster than larger muscle groups.
5. Eat nine servings of fresh fruits and vegetables each day. The powerful antioxidants neutralize free radicals generated by your increased exercise. Nine servings seems like a lot, but 1/2 cup of dried fruit provides two servings.
6. Trade refined sugars for whole grains. Refined sugars, like the high-fructose corn syrup ubiquitous in snack foods, leave you feeling washed out and hungry after a spike in insulin levels zaps your blood sugar level. Look for the words "whole grain" on the label, and enjoy a sustained energy level.
