The reflections on The Illusionists The Globalization of Beauty Ideals

Documentary Reflections
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Documentary Reflections
The award-winning documentary, “The Illusionists” presents powerful arguments on the impacts of global marketing of unattainable ideals of beauty. Accordingly, this paper gives a position on the whether it is true or not to say that global advertising firms, the mass media, as well as the leading beauty, fashion, and cosmetic surgery businesses are responsible for the way beauty is defined and how we view ourselves in the modern world. Moreover, the paper discusses how to address the challenge of the media focusing on the skewed, consumer-driven images of beauty from the West, showing little to no considerations for neither biological realities nor cultural differences. The paper then suggests what the role of the media should be in these circumstances.
A common English saying goes, “Beauty lies in the beholder’s eye.” However as shown in the documentary, the ability for people to behold and appreciate beauty is greatly compromised. While societies across the world are teeming with inspiring women who have succeeded in various professional fields like science and business; none of them is focused when it comes to beauty. It follows that beauty is centered on women who have to be young and poses conventionally attractive and almost identical features. In the foregoing, all stories of beauty that everyone seems to identify with are characteristically superficial and based on consumerism. Consequently, beauty is measured on standards what women wear, shop, drive, among other things.
One can thus question why diversity across the world as we know it has been “thrown out if the window?” Why does it seem that there is only one ideal of beauty that has to be achieved by all women? This “beauty myth” has pervaded the whole world with the resulta...