Distortion of The Real

This video is my take on Jean Baudrillard's ideas of simulation. In it, I suggest that women are constantly manipulating themselves in order to appear more attractive to society. They put on a mask, as Baudrillard would say. In fact, a new survey has found that over 50% of women are not happy with their appearance without some sort of cosmetic. Nowadays it seems as if makeup is no longer used as a tool for enhancement but, rather, a security blanket that conceals negative feelings.

In my video I had originally integrated numerous clips such as cosmetic commercials, sections from the TV series Toddlers and Tiaras, and a news report that told of a mother who injected botox into her 8 year old girl. However, this was too much footage to edit down to a three minute video, plus it got to be a bit congested and choppy.

Instead, I decided to start off the video with makeup tutorials that swarm YouTube. These exist to help girls achieve certain looks that they are so desperately seeking. In addition, I also included a slideshow of female celebrities. We are constantly having images of "perfect" women thrown in our faces, so seeing these people in the media obligates us to attempt these same looks. The black and white clippings are of myself covering up what is real and putting on a mask in order to appear more attractive to society. The audio used are sections of songs by Fergie and Madonna, which I thought both fit very well. The audio that concludes the video is just a segment from one of Jenna Marbles videos in which she discusses what a girl's makeup says about her. Here's a link to Jenna's YouTube channel.

Finally, here is a link to my video which I have posted on YouTube. I should also note that the audio in this YouTube video is a bit different than the original, for some reason the audio seems a bit muffled on the clips of the female celebrities. This is not the case when I view my video in Quick Time. Hope you guys all enjoy!