What can be said for the majority of entertainers, and I will get more specific in a moment, is that they are not only chosen for their talent, but their image. We find that more and more women identified entertainers are thin. While there may not be anything inherently wrong with them being health conscious and exercise driven, these images of thinness reflect back on the audience. Jean Kilbourne explains that girls receive messages from advertisers, and in this case industry workers playing on the collective unconscious, to be beautiful and thin in order to be desired. This causes issues with the consuming audience who take these images of thinness, which have been thrown at them over and over again, and translate them into a body image that is supposed to be reflective of these pop idols (260). The larger issue is not only thinness, but the way society shapes women's bodies to be commodities and assets that are to be desired. Girls are gauged socially not by their intellect, but rather by the over all appearance. Kilborne suggests that advertisers promote not mental prowess, but that “ their 'essence' is their underwear.” I translate this notion in two ways: 1) That women are defined by their reproductive organs and thusly media expouse a essentialized idea about what it is to be feminine; or 2) that commodification of sex appeal is directly related to the objectification of the female form. Let me explain. The female form has been made to seem like there is something absolutely necessary in order to be feminine and that this femininity is the biggest selling point young women have. The second idea suggests that making sex appeal a commodity is associated with how women are seen to be objects to be possessed rather than people (Kilborne 260).
Lets bring this back into perspective. Entertainers are then feeding into the system of objectification and essentialism. This essentialism is then reflecting onto the adolescent girl audience and shaping their ideas about self via messages that are designed to sell ideas in order to meet the bottom line demands for commodities such as cosmetics and things that are defined to be “feminine”. As you can see from the video, the messages sent by popstar and hierress Paris Hilton are not lost on adolescent girls ("Paris Hilton #1 Fan vLog") . For Paris you don't have to be intelligent to be successful, just have a rich daddy and a desire to be in the media.
So what are the result of these messages? As introduced earlier thinness is one theme that is thrown at society again and again. It is because of this desire for thinness that girls are turning to dieting at younger and younger ages. In 1993 “one-third of of twelve- to thirteen-year-old girls are actively trying to lose weight, by dieting, vomiting, using laxatives, or taking diet pills.” (262) Girls are encouraged, as Kilborne puts it, to diminish ones self by staying thin and small. Being passive and small is a way to control the power of women. By reinforcing the idea that one is limited by their objective status power is rarely attainable in a meaningful way. This is quite ironic due to societies pressure for women to be successful and to attain empowerment. Kilborne calls this a double bind because of the need to fill societies expectations of femininity but to be accomplished and sophisticated. In actuality this is a trap that has been laid by marketers, with ads emphasizing thinness, with the facade of allowing women to have liberty to choose options that said to be more nutritious or better for our bodies (263).
