Essay About Book Oryx And Western Societal Norm Ideals

Unbearable Weight
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What are the implications of attaining perfection? As pointed out in the article “Unbearable Weight” by Susan Bordo, society has hardwired into us that there is such a thing as the perfect body. In the book Oryx and Crake author Margaret Atwood portraits the fate of the human race as the desire to become perfect becomes powerful and scientifically possible. The book shows that once body perfection is attained, a new species is created and they are no longer homo sapiens sapiens. Even though perfection is not applicable to the human body, many will attempt to reach it with disastrous results. When did perfection start applying to the human body? Indeed “the bar of what we consider perfection is constantly being raised” (Bordo xvii). The extent to which people in todays society will go to in order to “contour” themselves to look “normal” is wide (Bordo xvi). The idea of what perfection is pictured through the media. The media has a huge impact on how we want to bound and confine our physical self. People look at ads and do not see that the images are not real. They perceive them as what should be expected “from flesh and blood” (Bordo xviii). The implications of how to attain that image can be unrealistic. They insinuate that the body can attain that level of perfection. But is this true and what is the cost of this look? The images are computer generated and the subjects themselves have gone through surgeries or spent hours with personal trainers or at gyms in order to look “perfect”. When people see these images, they will put themeless through various procedures, surgeries, and develop poor self esteem as a result of not being able to look like the models. When Western societal norm ideals were imposed on many people around the globe, many young people developed bad eating habits in order to achieve the Western look. There was a significant increase in eating disorders in various nations. The girls watching the Western ads were not educated or sophisticated enough to know that what they were watching was not real. They did not know and maybe did not care that the images had been digitally altered and enhanced. For example, “Nigeria sent its local version of beautiful to the Miss World Competition”, which was a full figured woman, but when Agbani Darego, a super skinny light skinned Aficana won the competition, everyone realized that “slim is beautiful” (Bordo xiv). From this point forward, no one was saved from the desire to be slim; jeopardizing their health in order to look beautiful and be accepted in their societies. With this desire to take up less space, cultural values are threatened. Family is a strong tie and these youth are “aware of traditional values but constantly feel the pull of contemporary demands” (xx). What do they do then? They feel alone and as if they are betraying their families. The new generations are growing in a society where “comfort with the body” is fast becoming a relic of another era” (Bordo xxii). The older generations conserved their values and their image of beauty as being a voluptuous body. However, nobody wants that anymore. It is not normal. It is not accepted. The bar for perfection has been set by these digitally generated models and is constantly being raised. The perfect image boundary also spread to engulf men and boys as well. When Calvin Klein “brought the sinuous, sculpted male body out of the closet” everybody “succumbed to its classic, masculine beauty” (Bordo xxiii). Men have the mentality that with a perfect body comes better sex and better lifestyle. They body build and find themselves at the gym often. However, this is also targeted to young boys. These youngsters turn to steriods for the “perfect” body. They are shown at a very young age, since the time they played with G.I Joes, that they must grow up to fit the Calvin Klein image. Then there is the question of who can actually afford to attain this ageless and perfect look. The concept of not aging at all is becoming the “new bodily norm” (Bordo xxiv). Many celebrities look younger in their 90s movies than they do today. This is resulting in the determination of who gets to have this look and who is left