Body Image

Working in a middle school full of adolescent girls is like being transported back in time to a teenage world of worries, insecurities, and an ever-present wish to change pretty much everything about yourself- hair, skin, body- in fact, if you look for it, you can pretty much find fault with anything, and that’s exactly what teenagers do.

(Source: Busan Focus, 15 June 2011, page 17)

With apologies to the guinea pigs that were the first to receive it back in March, as I get more practice I’m constantly updating (and hopefully improving) my public lecture on gender and Korean advertising, and as I prepare to give it a fourth time this weekend I realize I’ve been seriously remiss in not mentioning Koreans’ exceptionally tolerant attitudes towards photoshopping in it previously.

(Source: Busan Focus, 16 May 2011, p. 13)

Hey, I get it, I really do: ads that make men want the girl, can make women want to be that girl.

(Source: Ads of the World)

Sigh. I beg to differ on Cup Noodles being a “diet food” made for “people who want to get themselves into shape”, but it’s no great surprise that that’s how they’re being marketed in Korea.

(Sources: SeoulBeats & personal scan)

Welcome Busan National University students, and please click here for the PowerPoint presentation that accompanies my guest lecture next week. I look forward to meeting you!