Heidi me? HeidiHeidiHoe...Hell no..

Heres Heidi Montag: Before and after:

After watching an episode and a bit of the “reality” show the Hills, I adventured onto the e-media platform to explore the MTV site,  and unsurprisingly the page lived up to my lack of expectations. However one thing did catch my eye, not because it was a pinnacle of ingenious design or raised the eyebrow of intellectuals for being hair-raisingly shocking and eccentric. Hell it wasn’t even remotely exciting or invoking. But it did catch my eye, so something about it must have been fascinating, right? Well yes the nature of it did provoke a very tiny niggling of annoyance with in me, one that I would not have even acted upon if not for my essay.  In order to investigate this strange little piece of technology I clicked, and it completely enraged me.

The “Heidi me” app, as it was so named, stunned me. Simply out of how idiotic I found it and the metaphorical man genitalia, MTV had to make it.

Personal opinions aside about its imbecilic concept and appalling interface feature, there are more pressing things wrong with this application. If an individual feels so mentally stunted by their personal appearance and can afford to have surgery it is their own choice to go through with the procedure , under the guidance of professionals knowing the risks. The surgery is extensive, things can go wrong and well, it eats a chunk out of your pocket that if all fails, your left with no money and a “worse” appearance than before.

Plastic surgery has been on the rise in the last 3 years and last year 38,274 procedures occurred.  (link)

And this figure is predicted to rise dramatically in the next few years. What is increasingly worrying about  is that those strapped for cash may go to cheaper foreign clinics and may damage themselves permanently.  (link)

The issue with the “Heidi Me” app isn’t just personal distain but rather a dislike for the representation of the female body and how it directly publicises and encourages individuals to improve themselves. Although this App in most cases makes the individual worse with the poor graphics, the ideology to press people into it, is still there. In the future, better apps could be regurgitated with this same idea and that’s all it takes.

The two-step flow theory can be applied all through this application and on the site. The idea of becoming like “Heidi” is a way to represent her as something to desire, individuals want to be her, therefore she is perfect, and we “must” strive for aesthetic perfection, and are but lowly creatures if we don’t not try.

The “Heidi Me” app had various features that allowed you to “replicate” her many surgeries on a photograph of you. This encourages you to dabble in how you can be “improved” and “better” yourself.  It designates a heavy reliance on how despite that “Heidi” is a total bitch, because she is what MTV land denotes as beautiful, it doesn’t matter and that she is somehow superior to all the other characters, and more importantly, you. On The Hills page, she is the centre fold between two other cast members and stands out more. An app just for her reinforces this ideology that she is better that the others. It plays heavily on the insecurities that the predominantly female audience may have. This also strikes as odd, as a heavily manufactured and plastic-cased woman is being presented sexually to other women, and unless every female watching is homosexual the only other explanation is to offer Heidi as a role model as to what other women should be.

Offering Heidi as a symbol of Beauty and sensuality would clarify why MTV wants to encouraged individuals to “Heidi” themselves. It shows how the cosmetic institute has penetrated and is using shows like The Hills to demoralise, put down and sell to the audience . Further demonstrating this, I wandered the internet via a search engine, looking for more about the “Heidi me “ app, perhaps a designer for it or a news article covering it, low and behold I found not one but 3 cosmetic companies claiming they could Heidi-afie me!

I even found the culprit who thought up the awful Frankenstein piece (without the heart felt emotions of said creature) all of which forget to mention that Heidi herself, nearly died during  the lengthy procedures, but then again it’s just a bump in the road to “perfection”. (link)   (link)

A Deeper Dig into Lancomes advertising

The Lancôme Paris Tient Miracle foundation was recently banned by ASA for over photoshopping. The above piece claims to give beautiful skin by “aura” which is supposed to be natural light being perspired by the flesh.

The advertisement has a number of aspects that could influence individuals of the ideology it presents. Theories such as two-step flow can be seen at work here, using emotive and desirable language such as “beautiful” and “perfect skin” parallel to a supposed beauty the celebrity Julia Roberts. This combination of nudging language and the use of Julia Roberts tries to connote that these images are indexical of beauty. Beauty in this image is seen as a hierarchy, the subtle colours and flowering rose being a natural, and often thought of as a symbol of beauty and romance, this image is faded away allowing the product and this women to take dominance in the image, these connotations subject the audience to the ideology that her beauty, which is denoted to be due to the product, is far superior to the rose. This hierarchy in the image is designed to lure the audience in in order to seek this dominance in beauty and looks, playing off and perhaps a preconscious though that self worth is determined by ones aesthetics rather than achievements. The piece feeds on this insecurity of its specific audience; perhaps 26+ years old on a need to be young and beautiful in accordance to what this advert deems so. This would appeal those who probably have a regular and spendable income, perhaps full time workers who are women as this product is an expensive product from a well known brand, also the choice of model denotes the age group to her when her height of fame took place and the familiarity that group will have with her.

   This advert is misleading and mere propaganda to fuel the cosmetic institutes war on self-worth.  Below is and image of Julia Roberts in real life (plus make up) and Julie Roberts from the advertisement.

It is obviously over photoshopped (hence being band) however the level of it is disturbing due to the fact that it is helping to connote that the Tient Miracle foundation will give you such a flawless look. Not only has her skin been lightened and clear of any blemishes and age lines from her under eyes but her neck, her eyes have been changed, the colour enhanced her nose shape changed and mouth smoothed and shaped slightly fuller.

Is advert in short is trying to indoctrinate women into buying a product claiming to make them look like this Strange non-existent creature that bares a resemblance to Julia Roberts. Not only does this affect the way people think when buying it affects the way they think about themselves. This being picked up by the ASA only reinforces that this advert has every intention to sell a product on false pretences with the hidden agenda to make the audience aspire to be like this individual and to feel guilty and bad if they don’t.

Lancôme although a brand in its own right is under and umbrella of other companies all heading beneath the cosmetic industry seem to aim time and time again to try and convince us that we need to look like these non-existent and weird looking beings by making them symbols of beauty. The question however is why? Though there is a vast amount of answers to this one is an easy conclusion, money. If we aspire to look like something that does not exist or can only come to existence through digital and non realistic editing, then we can never reach this “pinnacle “of beauty displayed by the industry yet will buy these products feed into this idea and openly strive for these images bombarded at us, spending into it, so that more of these images are produced so that we will buy into it some more, creating a devastating circle that escalates.

For instance now if an individual feels that their desired appearance can not be achieved with chemical face painter, then they turn to the knife, making these bizarre creations a reality via plastic surgery feeding into this ideology more and affected others in an almost viral fashion, but with an ideology that makes these industries money.