Barbie Research

Does Barbie influence children and can it lead to low self esteem?

Whilst researching i came across a website that had sources on Barbie influences and on what could be causing the influence.

In 1965 'slumber party Barbie' was released.Barbie came with accessories for her slumber party. The set came with Pink scales set at 110 lbs and a 'How to lose weight' booklet. Although the set came with a ken dole which had milk and cookies; sending out a totally different message.

One woman was influenced by Barbie so much so that she has had 20 plastic surgeries and ended up spending about $55,000 to reach her goal of becoming Barbie.

This picture shows a comparison an of an average women compared to Barbie if she was human.She would be very out of proportion.She would be at least 35lbs underweight.

These sources were found from:http://www.teen-beauty-tips.com/barbie-body-image.html

By Chloe Kidd

Planning and Research

Research:

Although we seemed to have a plethora of ideas for what the subject of our documentary should consist of as a group we had to do some background analysis on how we could construct our ideas into our ancillary text (our documentary). Below is a brain storm from my notes looking at different types of documentary. To understand how to construct, use or avoid certain conventions we had to evaluate how successful or un-successful they were in other products.

We looked at a few theories one of witch being the Hyperdermic needle theory. When analysis certain documentaries for example 'Supersize me', the truth that seemed to be uncovered made many of us think twice about what we were putting into our mouths. There for essentially we are taking what we have learnt or interpreted from this documentary into our lives. We saw that there was a common consensus with most documentaries looked at for example 'underage and pregnant', showed teens the reality of having children why there were still growing themselves.

Therefore due to finding this we decided that the methods and conventions of documentary that we chose would have to be carefully selected due to impact upon the target audience.

Next we were brought into the world of Michael Moore to see how he used the conventions of documentary. Here we could evaluate what would be appropriate for our target audience. (below are some of the notes that I took) Bowling for Columbine:

We found that Moore took a very spontaneous angle to his work and also was quite pro-formative. This was effective in creating audience suspense and making the target audience feeling involved with the documentary when it come to them passing judgement on what/ the views they are being exposed to.

Also we found that when conducting interviews that it was common that a mid-shot was taken to a slight angle of a persons face. (This has been noted for our documentary due to this being a successful aspect and is a common convention in many documentaries.)

Planning:

This image is a photograph showing the planning stage for our documentary and pitch.

Here as a group we brainstormed ideas such as our target audience, interviews and inspiration.

The above image shows a plan of how as a group we wish to structure the documentary.

This helped us as, once planned we had to consolidate our ideas for the docuemtary, such as content so as a group we could give a solid understanding in our pitch of what we are documenting to our target audience and how we are going to make this possible.

Below is a video showing original storyboards.

Written and video blog by Chrishelle Henderson

Does Beauty Advertising Destroy Self Esteem?

The documentary is about self-esteem and why it affects women so much, our aim is to try and understand why self-esteem has become such an issue to young girls especially.

Our documentary is a very serious matter as it affects so many young girls worldwide. We are going to explore if the media influences women’s body confidence if so how it does and why. In addition we are going to explore how the media (in particular magazines, music videos, adverts) has changed their representation of women throughout the years and why.


What type of Documentary is it?

Interactive as we will be getting involved with our documentary and being represented in our documentary. As well as observational mode when interviewing. We will be using a hand held camera to capture action as it happens.

What Documentary inspired you?

A documentary-film inspired us to do this called ‘America the beautiful’. This documentary is about how America is so obsessed with beauty. Another Documentary that inspired us was ‘How to look good naked’ which is directed by Gok Wan who has a campaign to get self confidence to be taught in schools. Also he tries to build women's self confidence throughout his programme

Is it Viable?

Making this documentary is highly feasible as we have access to a lot of the elements which we need to create this documentary. E.g.; Leicester square, Interviewees, Magazines, e.t.c. Also as we are in a school enviroment we have acsess to many age groups to see what age groups are influenced the most by how the media (magazines, billboards and advertising) and how it portrays 'beauty'.

What locations will you use?

We intend to film in our school, London Oxford Street, Leicester square, Enfield Town, Local Fitness Club, interviewees home. We will be going to London Oxford as we can see various body shapes, fashion styles and our target auidence. As well as many high street shops that we can explore.

Who will you approached for interviews?

We will be approaching various women to interview to get their opinions on media influences (magazines, billboards and advertising) and how they portray 'beauty'. As well as teachers and students. We will try to interview a head of a magazine company. We also have planned an interview with a recovered anorexic to look at the extreme sides of self esteem.

What further research will be required in order to be well informed?

In order to be well informed we will need to research the history of the media (in particular magazines, music videos, adverts). In additon we will be looking at modern advertising and how that influences young women. Also through questionnaires we will get a lot of reseach as well as researching statistics.

How will the 5 minute fit into a longer whole?

There is loads of paths we could go down. As well as many interviewees that we could interview. In addition there is history of the beauty advertisment that we could explore. We could also look into the mind set of the people who are involved with modeling or self esteem ie Dove campaign,Gok Wan or beauty padgents or plus size modeling. As it would make our documentary more personal to our audience. Lastly we could expand our target audience to younger girls to pensioners.

Who is you target audience?

Our demographic audience is teenage girls from the age of 13 to 18 aswell as women from the age of 18 to 30. This is because our demographic auidence would be quirky, ambitious and suceeder. As the suceeder would be someone who works in the beauty industry, ambitous would be somone aiming to work in or around the beauty industry and the quirky audience would be young girls who belive they are different and are inspired or influenced by how beauty is portrayed through the media. If we were to go by the theory that was created by Galtung and Ruge. Lastly we could expand our target audience to younger girls to pensioners if we were to do a longer documentary.

What channel would commission your documentary and why?

Channel 4 or BBC3 would comission our documentary as they have shown documentaries that are similar. For instance BBC3 have had documentaries like Teenage parents and Snog Marry Avoid? which have the same demographic audience as our documentary. Also other programmes like Family Guy and Russel Howard Good News which also has the same demographic audience as our documentary. In addition BBC3 show promgrammes that are controversial which our documentary could been seen as. Channel 4 would also commision our documentary as they have commisioned such documentaries as 'My beautiful Face' 'How racist are you' and 'how to look good naked'; which looks at boosting self confidence levels which is our aim for our documentary. They also have a campaign inwhich they are trying to get self confidence taught at schools. this has inspired us to meet up with students in the years below to find ourt their views and opinions on self esteem and how they are influenced with the way they look. Again this channel is highly controversial which could or could not fir into our 5 minute documentary. If we had more time on a longer whole we could make it extremely controversial.


Is there a global market for your documentary?

Of course theres a global market for our documentary, everyday in everyones lives they are bombarded with advertisment showing them how to look and dress. The media portrays this certain 'beautyiful' image that is extremely pressured onto women or many ages. We are going to look at the damage it has done to the age group closest to our own as we can relate to them, which is from 13 to 18.

Chloe Wall And Chloe Kidd