The monologue America Ferrera’s character, Gloria from the Barbie Movie, performed is truly powerful. Everything mentioned spoke the truth about the standards women are told to follow just to be liked. It’s sad, because although it isn’t outright mentioned, every woman feels the pressure to follow these “rules.” Ferrera wasn’t wrong when she said “it’s literally impossible to be a woman.” Wight is a common insecurity almost every girl has experienced. Social Media definitely hasn’t been a help with unrealistic expectations. Not everyone is born with the same body, but if a celebrity is getting alot of likes in a bikini picture, it’s easy for women, especially young women, to compare. Kim Kardashian, for example, has been known for her figure. I have nothing against any of the Kardashian’s, but almost all of them have a daughter by now, so you would think they wouldn’t want their “beauty standard” to rub off on their young and impressionable daughters. Kylie Jenner, another daughter of Kris Kardashian, recently spoke to her sisters on their show, The Kardashians, about the standards they’re setting and how harmful it could be. It’s important that not just the Kardashians, but every woman on the internet, realize that not every post has a positive impact. Body image is a growing problem, especially since children are on social media apps like TikTok, which is known for being super toxic and unrealistic at times. More and more girls are shopping at Sephora rather than Claires, or LuluLemon rather than Justice. Personally, I think this is a real problem. Not because I’m jealous since I had to go through that “awkward phase” and kids now don’t, I’m mentioning this as a problem because girls especially are being taught to grow up faster.
TikTok rose to popularity around 2018-2019 in lieu of an app called Musical.ly. Musical.ly was a popular social media platform just like TikTok, but tamer and more appropriate for younger kids. Everyone I know was once on Musical.ly, we all refer to that as the “good old days.” TikTok is definitely not an app for kids, there are fewer restrictions and people on the app can post whatever they want, while Musical.ly was a lip syncing app. TikTok shares news, politics, fitness, beauty, and more that younger children shouldn’t be exposed to on the daily or without parental supervision. Younger girls are looking at older girls getting thousands of likes, which only makes them want to be more like the “pretty girls on TikTok.” Once again, not everybody’s the same, and a young girl might not know that yet. Not to mention some girls use the app to gain male attention which is also another thing we shouldn’t be promoting to young girls. It goes both ways too, gross men like to sexualize and prey on young girls on the app as well.
I truly feel for young girls growing up in the world we do, myself included. Parents allowing their young children on social media unsupervised is subjecting them to sexualization and harassment. Social media has elevated the amount of hate and harassment and pretty much normalized it. I think that is a reason why body shaming and the “perfect body image” for women is as big of a problem as it is. It is important that big movies like Barbie recognize these standards and realize this isn’t how our society should be. That is why America Ferrera will go down in Hollywood history.
