What does attractive mean? Is it intelligence, personality, physical aesthetic, or sex appeal? All of these aspects have a social bias. In the United States these are measured with college degrees and television. A portion of society scorns the television bias. However, if not directly appreciating the physical characteristics deemed by media hype a degree style and fashion is influenced by the media.
Culture assists in forming an opinion about various options to establish an ideal mate or acceptable friend. A plethora of literary and film characters fill people's minds. Doctors, lawyers, politicians and detectives became forerunners in representing intelligence. They are portrayed as utilizing intelligence to benefit everyone and are attributed with several positive traits like selflessness, humility and dedication. (These are also positive traits in the bible.)
Many people have various lifestyles; however, their chance to be seen as a character takes second place. The protagonist rebel with a good heart or union supporter is occasionally the center of attention. Shows cast roles for typical office workers, yet a larger cross-section of society is only represented as someone needing help from more powerful people.
This is probably a good mechanism. The middle-class and poor are good hearted and deserve sympathy while the wealthy validate contributions by helping people. Then again, is this really a good image?
I suppose it is better than portraying everyone except the wealthy as scum or visa-verse; however, a hand out has limited possibilities in the real world and some of the missing characters are not in need of welfare. From a religious perspective a person should be paid a fair wage. Responsibility to pay for a day's work and hard work are slowly fading in the media perspective. Media lives separate everyone into have or have nothings. The have nothings must own literately nothing to gain assistance. Middle-class families are ignored though representing the largest portion of society.
Intelligence and attractiveness determined by daily life produces alternate aspects to make realistic comparison for potential lovers and friends. The image of a family relative or close friend becomes the visual image associated with positive or negative traits. Circles of friends or family format provide visual association to intelligence. Marketers exploit this basic relationship by associating "normal people" to their product. Yet most people on television, in movies or commercials are a thin to moderate weight.
Who said women should have a thin waist and men should have broad shoulders? In England the popular women have a robust appearance. The attractive men have long, lanky bodies. In Africa some women stretch their bottom lips or earlobes with gauges. Before television the wealthy in the United States flaunted their lack of physical responsibilities by avoided tanning, gaining weight and becoming soft.
People want to blame marketers and accuse them of creating these images, so people buy their products. A man's razor promoted an idea of being safe enough for women. Currently, both men and women attempt to remove hair from their entire body. This created controversy developed over this issue, though no one questions the ongoing escalations to promote everyone is "healthier."
Could people use money to control people by making it a common understanding any money they give another person is charity; however, we all have to eat smaller portions? It is clear we need a lot of charity in order to buy food; therefore, we should ingratiate ourselves by working selflessly. Physical attractiveness is extremely important. We need clothes and hair dye to remain competitive otherwise we are doomed to poverty and death without children.
This is all convenient to whoever is making the rules. A healthy workforce understands they must take a subservient role in order to survive. They learn what attractive is and seek healthy mates. Those who refuse to acknowledge this can die, thereby no longer oppose what is obviously true. I do not offer the solution of being unattractive, ostracized or abused. This essay only reflects on what "attractive" might actually mean. I will say if dying your hair blue and styling it into a giant pointy spike on top of your head was deemed attractive, everyone would want the biggest, spikiest hair.
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