{"id":56847,"date":"2015-03-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/filmmaker-darryl-roberts-americas-obsession-with-beauty-is-damaging-youth-women-and-men\/"},"modified":"2015-03-19T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T00:00:00","slug":"filmmaker-darryl-roberts-americas-obsession-with-beauty-is-damaging-youth-women-and-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2015\/03\/filmmaker-darryl-roberts-americas-obsession-with-beauty-is-damaging-youth-women-and-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Filmmaker Darryl Roberts: America\u2019s obsession with beauty is damaging youth, women \u2013 and men"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\u201cAmerica the Beautiful\u201d documentary to be screened at 溏心vlog免费B站, April 7<\/b><\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 19, 2015 \u2013 A few years ago, filmmaker Darryl Roberts asked 200 women if they liked their bodies. Their answers shocked him: Only two said yes.<\/p>\n


\nThat revelation led him on a journey to explore this ugly truth, culminating in his three award-winning \u201cAmerica the Beautiful\u201d documentaries, praised by critics for taking a brutally honest look at a national crisis.<\/p>\n


\nThe last in the series, \u201cAmerica the Beautiful 3: The Sexualization of Our Youth,\u201d will be shown, free of charge, at the 溏心vlog免费B站 April 7 at 6 p.m. in Edwards Hall, 64 Upper College Road, on the Kingston campus. Roberts is attending the screening and will answer questions afterward.<\/p>\n


\nShown throughout the country and world, the film explores the harmful effects of sexualization on young people, covering topics like child beauty pageants, teen pregnancy and rape, and the ways in which the culture of sexualization damages both boys and girls.<\/p>\n


\n溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Marketing and Communications Office caught up with the Chicago filmmaker recently to talk about his work, the media\u2019s role in the problem and the quest for physical perfection in this country.<\/p>\n

Thank you for talking to us. In 2008, the American Psychological Association released a report claiming that sexualized images in the media and pop culture have created a mental health crisis among girls. How so?<\/b> <\/p>\n


\nThe association said that they found a link between the amount of sexualized images young girls were digesting and an increase in body dissatisfaction, depression and eating disorders \u2013 all markers for mental health issues.<\/p>\n

Has TV fueled the fire?<\/b><\/p>\n


\nAbsolutely. TV probably has the fastest, most impactful effect on a young person\u2019s behavior and self-esteem. Remember the Fiji study from 1995. They went from not having television on the island to it being introduced in 1995, and in three short years 11 percent of girls had eating disorders when they had none before that. The residents of Fiji said that TV totally corrupted their culture. They blamed shows like \u201cBeverly Hills, 90210.\u201d <\/p>\n

What about fashion magazines? Women, thin as reeds, are portrayed in sexually explicit poses, sometimes with girlish features like pigtails.<\/b><\/p>\n


\nThere is a statistic that says 3 minutes reading a fashion magazine will cause a woman to feel depressed, guilty and shameful. In all honesty, you can\u2019t single out one culprit. It\u2019s the culture. All of it together creates a culture that supports an unrealistic body ideal, and it\u2019s hard to escape from it.<\/p>\n

The problem seems overwhelming. How can we stop it? Advertisers obviously are making money selling sex, and we do live in a capitalist society.<\/b><\/p>\n


\nRealistically companies are not going to stop advertising the way they do as long as they\u2019re making money. What has to change is us. Being an individual is the biggest threat to an advertiser. Their system only works when our youth sees beauty in a monolithic way, as the same ideal to aspire to. What if our youth looked at themselves as individuals and saw different things and sizes as beautiful. How would advertisers market to all the different viewpoints? Advertising only works when they can brainwash the masses.<\/p>\n

Any advice to parents of young girls bombarded by sexually explicit images?<\/b><\/p>\n


\nI\u2019ve been telling parents that the reason young people in America are falling into the sex trap is because they don\u2019t have a sense of what a healthy sexuality is. Young people are not taught by their parents, and they aren\u2019t taught in school. Teach young people \u2013 like in Europe \u2013 what it means to have a healthy sexuality and the paradigm will shift.<\/p>\n

Your film won a rave review by the late critic Roger Ebert. What do you hope to accomplish with the movie?<\/b><\/p>\n


\nMy hope for \u201cAmerica the Beautiful 3\u201d is for parents to realize that our youth\/kids need us to stop trying to be their friends and start supporting them in an adult way. Parents are on Facebook with their kids and dress like them and listen to their music, etc., but what the kids need is support and guidance. Let\u2019s stand up and be adults for our youth.<\/p>\n

Women are taught to seek an impossible physical ideal, but men are taught to worship it. What can we do to nurture more enlightened boys?<\/b><\/p>\n


\nThat\u2019s another problem in our society. Unfortunately, most males aren\u2019t taught what it means to be a man, especially from an emotional perspective: \u201cBe strong. Don\u2019t cry. Suck it up!\u201d Young boys are confused growing up. We have this wave of hyper-masculinity, and it\u2019s causing major problems in our society. Men are also buying into the beauty myth with the Adonis complex. Plastic surgery is on the rise in men, and sometimes I have to wonder: Are we ever going to come back to a natural state so our society can heal?<\/p>\n

The Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition just landed in millions of mailboxes across the country. Some say the cover borders on the obscene. What do you think?<\/b><\/p>\n


\nI understand that a woman has the inalienable right to do whatever she wants with her body. That being said, I tend to view things from the lens of community, meaning how does this image affect the masses. And when you think about how images like that have been making young girls feel about themselves for decades and how young boys relate to girls by seeing images like that, I have to say, honestly, I had a problem with the image of the model on the cover.<\/p>\n


\nFor more information, call 溏心vlog免费B站 psychology professor Lisa Weyandt at 401-874-2087 or email her at lisaweyandt@uri.edu<\/a>. Sponsors are the Department of Psychology, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Gender and Women\u2019s Studies and the Office of Community, Equity and Diversity.<\/p>\n


\nPictured above: Filmmaker Darryl Roberts, director of \u201cAmerica the Beautiful 3,\u201d to be shown April 7 at the 溏心vlog免费B站. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAmerica the Beautiful\u201d documentary to be screened at 溏心vlog免费B站, April 7 KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 19, 2015 \u2013 A few years ago, filmmaker Darryl Roberts asked 200 women if they liked their bodies. Their answers shocked him: Only two said yes. That revelation led him on a journey to explore this ugly truth, culminating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}