Get real!: Cultural relevance and resistance to the mediated feminine ideal

Abstract

Abstract As part of a longitudinal study that examines early and late adolescent girls' interpretations of mainstream teen magazines, this research focuses on how the African American audience's interpretive frame enables them to critique and distance themselves from selected aspects of a consumption object with which they regularly engage. The results were drawn from in‐depth interviews with 16 African American girls, ages 13–18, who are regular readers of one of the top three teen titles: Seventeen, YM, or ‘Teen. In this article, consumption is conceptualized not only as purchase, but acceptance of and aspiration to the ideals employed by the beauty industry to sell goods and services, e.g., a thin body type, European‐American facial features, and a preference for a “made‐up” appearance. Conversely, anti‐consumption is rejection, subversion or negotiation of those same ideals, although such critical stances do not preclude voluntary, regular exposure to the texts conveying these ideals. The analysis illustrates the importance of cultural relevance in promoting consumers' aspiration to mediated ideals; in particular, the article explores African American consumers' criticism of Euro‐centric feminine ideals as not real. While White girls actively sought out the magazines' alternate, improved version of reality, African American girls compared the fictional work to their real world experience and not only denied the veracity of the ideal, but preferred their reality to it. As predicted by racial identity theory, most African American girls in this study, particularly older girls, did not defer to the magazines' authority in defining their conception of femininity, which instead was strongly influenced by culture and frequently defined in direct opposition to the mediated ideal. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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