Miss Representation

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Mitchell:
The media is

the message and the messenger

and, increasingly, a powerful one.

Katz:

People learn more from media

than any other single source

of information,

so if we want to understand

what's going on in our society

in the 21st century,

we have to understand media.

Steyer:
If you think about

media and technology,

they're delivering content

that is shaping our society.

They're shaping our politics.

They're shaping

our national discourse.

And most of all, they're shaping

our children's brains

and lives and emotions.

Mayer:
We estimate

that there's somewhere north

of a billion people who use

the internet every single day.

That's just a reach

that hasn't existed before

in terms of media.

Steyer:
Our kids today

live on Facebook and cellphones.

The diversity of the platforms means

that those images

are impacting your kid 2417

and whatever restrictions

existed when we were growing up

simply don't exist today.

Kilbourne:
Girls get the message

from very early on

that what's most important

is how they look,

that their value, their worth,

depends on that.

And boys get the message

that this is what's important

about girls.

We get it from advertising.

We get it from films.

We get it from television shows,

video games, everywhere we look.

So, no matter what else a woman does,

now matter what else

her achievements,

their value still depends on

how they look.

There is no appreciation

for women intellectuals.

It's all about the body,

not about the brain.

You all saw the famous photo

from the weekend

of Hillary looking so haggard

and, what, looking like 92 years old.

Breast implants...

did you have them or not'?

Because that's all over

the internet about you

in mainstream media.

I think if you waterboarded

Nancy Pelosi,

she wouldn't admit

to plastic surgery.

Pozner:
The fact that media are

so limiting and so derogatory

to the most powerful women

in the country,

then what does it say

about media's ability

to take any woman in america

seriously'?

The media treats women like sh*t,

and it's horrible, and it's, like...

I don't know how we survive it

I don't know how we rise above it.

[Metric's "Help I'm Alive" plays]

I tremble

[echoing ] I tremble

They're gonna eat me alive

[echoing ] Eat me alive

If I stumble

[ Echoing ] If I stumble

They're gonna eat me alive

[echoing ] Eat me alive

Can you hear my heart

beating like a hammer?

Beating like a hammer

Help, I'm alive

My heart keeps beating

like a hammer

Hard to be soft

Tough to be tender

Come take my pulse

The pace is on a runaway train

Help, I'm alive

My heart keeps beating

like a hammer

Beating like a hammer

Beating like a hammer

Beating like a hammer

Help, I'm alive

My heart keeps beating

like a hammer

Captions by Vitac...

Captions paid for by

Discovery Communications.

Siebel Newsom:

There are moments in life

when you begin to see things

more clearly.

When I found out

I was pregnant with a girl,

everything came into focus.

But I looked around me,

and I was really frightened for her.

I couldn't imagine

that my daughter could grow up

to be emotionally healthy

and fulfilled

given our modern culture.

So I'm compelled to make sense

of all of this for her.

And I know I have to start

by looking at my own life...

the mistakes I've made

and the traps I've fallen into.

Because even though

I've had many privileges,

I haven't been immune

to the damage our culture does

to women and girls.

When I was a young girl,

I felt secure

in my place in the world.

But as with most girls,

things changed as I got older.

A few days before my 7th birthday,

my older sister Stacy died

in an accident.

I blamed myself for her death,

and out of guilt and sadness,

I tried to be two daughters

instead of one.

I channeled my pain

into excelling in sports and school.

But no matter how hard I tried

I somehow felt inadequate.

I became increasingly

susceptible to peer pressure

and the bombardment of media messages

telling me that being strong,

smart, and accomplished

was not enough.

To be a woman

meant constantly striving

for an unattainable ideal of beauty

and approval in the eyes of men.

So when a trusted peer

and, later, a coach

preyed upon my vulnerability

and violated me,

I was so frightened and ashamed

I completely shut down.

My self-worth

was at an all-time low

and I developed an eating disorder

that consumed two years of my life.

It took a lot of love and support

for me to find my strength again.

And although my experiences

are unique,

my struggle is all too common.

It's always hard

being a teenage girl,

but now the media disseminates

such limiting portrayals of women

and pervades

every aspect of our culture.

Is it any wonder teen girls feel

more powerless than ever'?

I want a different world

for my daughter and her generation.

But a lot has to change first.

We see so much in the media

that there's so much negativity

towards women

and their weight and how they look,

and it's just a representation

of the pressure we feel

to conform to man's ideals.

There's this concept

of the perfect woman

who looks this certain way,

and because women

may not look that way,

they're scrutinized.

I remember fifth grade,

I was worrying about my weight.

And now I'm in ninth grade.

I'm still worrying about my weight.

Me being a small person,

like, at my old school,

I was told to, like, go throw up

[voice breaking]

or, like, go eat a hamburger

because people thought I was

like, anorexic or something.

So I would, like, eat a lot

so that people would think

that I didn't have

an eating disorder.

I straighten my hair

just so I can fit in

when I have naturally curly hair.

I have close friends that,

like, in between break periods,

they will go to the bathroom

and put on like 10 pounds

of make-up

and, you know, comb their hair

and do all this pampering you know,

and you're at school to learn.

When is it gonna be enough'?

'Cause, you know, I have

a younger sister, and, like.

[voice breaking] She's like...

[sighs]

Kilbourne:

The ideal image of beauty

is more extreme and impossible

than ever before.

In the old days,

the perfection was achieved

through cosmetics and airbrushing,

but now it's possible

for that image to be

absolutely perfect

because of computers.

[camera shutter clicking]

You never see the photograph

of a woman considered beautiful

that hasn't been digitally altered

to make her absolutely,

inhumanly perfect.

Girls are being encouraged

to achieve that ideal

at younger and younger ages

all the time.

They end up measuring themselves

against an impossible standard

and feeling themselves wanting

as a result of it.

Also, not surprisingly,

young men who are shown lots

of photographs of supermodels

then judge real women

much more harshly.

The most important thing

to understand

about all of these images

and how they affect us

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