False Portrayal of Motherhood Through the Media: People Magazine

RUNNING HEAD: FALSE PORTRAYAL OF MOTHERHOOD THROUGH THE MEDIA: PEOPLE MAGAZINE

False Portrayal of Motherhood through the Media: People Magazine

Kaycee Mascio

Rasmussen College

False Portrayal of Motherhood through the Media: People Magazine

When every magazine ad or cover is showing you a full color glossy of a perfect, beautiful woman or man, you start to question yourself and ask if you measure up. But, as all should know, these images are chopped and cropped, touched up or digitally manipulated. In magazines, photos of models and celebrities are routinely doctored to make the subjects more appealing. This is done so that the magazine can sell more magazines; this is very common for celebrity moms. Magazines love the rise in sales they get when they portray a new mother on the cover holding her new baby. But they show a mother who has magically lost all her baby weight in a matter of a week, smiling in a full get up of makeup and fineries. People magazine is notorious for this action, but not the only guilty magazine. One specific prominent incident was the cover of March 2008 where they showed a gorgeous smiling Jennifer Lopez holding her twins. The portrayal of motherhood in magazine covers in a personal, historical, technical, ethical, cultural, and critical perspective allows for society to indetify motherhood in a false viewpoint.

From a personal perspective, or a first glance the portrayal of motherhood across the magazines in the check out isles at every retail store is upsetting. Whenever browsing through the magazines on the check out line, cover after cover of celebrities with their children is daunting, all smiling and looking great. The impact of these smiling faces might not have an effect on teenagers and young women, but to mothers it can be upsetting. When a new mother spends hours in labor, followed by the personal invasion of her body from hospital staff galore, pictures are not on her mind. Some mothers even go as far as to forbid pictures taken by family members of herself, in her status of disarray. Even days, weeks, or months after birth, new parents can feel exhausted out of their minds; a new toll of a baby can challenge anyone. Motherhood may be a grand event to look forward to, when the time is right, but labor is nothing to idealize and look forward to. This act of showing celebrities days after labor, with altered figures showing no baby weight, and smiling faces shows labor and the first days of motherhood to be easy and a happy occasion. This false perception of motherhood to young teenagers encourages teen pregnancies.

Historically Jennifer Lopez had her twins on Friday February 22nd; a picture was taken not long after, as the issue hit stands on the cover of People Magazine March 21st, barely a month later. It was a picture showing the perfect mother, gorgeous in her pearls. This look of the devoted woman is not a new one; it has been portrayed through out media since the 1950s. The image of the perfect housewife in the 1950s; was women who gladly cooked, cleaned, dressed in pearls and wore high heals while waiting for their all-knowing husbands to come home. People Magazine took advantage of this well known visual reference to the label of mother, and dressed Jennifer in an amazing dress in a soft pastel color with matching pearl earrings. Pastel colors represent spring or summer, and the delicate hue of pink, represents a sensitive heart that is affectionate and nurturing.

Although the image has an honest and soft appeal to it, the image itself is technically manipulated and altered to show this perfect mom in Jennifer Lopez. A meaningful principle to take into consideration is the principles of gestalt. "The sum of the whole is greater than its parts" is the idea behind the principle of gestalt. It's the perception of a composition as a whole. While each of the individual parts have meaning on their own, taken together, the meaning may change. The viewers perception of the piece is based on our understanding of all the bits and pieces working in unison. Its importance for photography lies mainly in its laws of organization, which

underpin most of the principles of composing images. In a magazine cover there may be many pictures taken and then altered together. Or a magazine cover may have a large picture, and a smaller picture underneath with a headline pertaining to the small, but the meaning carries over to the larger image. Although it cannot be sure what exactly was altered in this image itself, all images are altered unless it is a special circumstance, by simple means such as adjusting colors, contrast, gradational retouching, sharpness, and removing elements or visible flaws on skin or materials. According to BabyCenter, "Even after your uterus shrinks back into your pelvis, you may continue to look somewhat pregnant for several weeks or longer." (BabyCenter). It generally takes up to six months for a woman's body to return to 'normal' after giving birth. Normal, here, just means the average metabolic rate and hormonal amounts that were experienced before conception. In some areas, and to some degree, those