Paper 3 (The Final) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Paper 3 (The Final) - Essay Example Lady Gaga has been a trendsetter in fashion and beauty for several years to date. Her photo to be featured in this paper and the way it was presented is similar to how she portrayed herself in public – deviant and trendsetter. Beyonce, on the other hand, has been a role model of popular culture for more than a decade now. She depicts talent and beauty that most young people look up to and desired to be. These two personalities in their own ways set the standards for beauty and define what popular culture is. By this, my paper will try to evaluate the effect of popular culture in people’s perception of beauty. I will explore two photos to prove that there is a connection between the photos, the popular culture and its role in influencing people’s lives and perspectives in terms of their social roles and in the aspect of beauty in particular. In the study conducted by Barbara Read entitled â€Å"Britney, Beyonce and me – Primary school girls’ role mo dels and constructions of the ‘popular girl’† it was discussed how gender and culture shape the values of young girls today into aligning with the experiences observed from their role models are, like for example Lady Gaga and Beyonce. According to Read (2), children’s peer culture play an important role in shaping the way they value things and construct meanings such that the more their friends want to become like their role models, they wanted the same things to happen to them too. According to the results of the study (Read 5), school girls look up to their female teachers primarily as their role models but this can be argued to be normal as teachers are the next best thing they normally look up to. The next school girls’ role models include female singers and performers such as Britney and Beyonce (Read 5). Source: American music photo set. The photo above is showing Beyonce as she performed Oxygen Festival in Ireland. The photo is an example of a framing vector in which the artist used edges of the image as well as other vectors within the image to direct viewer’s attention; this type was specifically used to include certain elements while excluding others (â€Å"Tools† 6). By using this type of vector, the artist or photographer was able to portray Beyonce as an object in which viewers can direct their attention (â€Å"Tools† 7). The objectified pop star can now be subjected to scrutiny and in turn may influence the perception of people especially pre-teen girls and women. They were able to see Beyonce in this photo as a role model in the way she look and dress and how beautiful and talented she is. The perspective of the photo was oblique in which there is a slightly more detached sense of involvement (â€Å"Tools† 14) and the long shot social distance that pertains to distance between people who are to remain strangers (â€Å"Tools† 17). In support to this claim, Read suggested in her work that pre-teen girls look up to people that are popular and are stranger to them (6). Read’s extensive works on the subject lead her to conclude that pop music had been important for pre teen girls in construction of their identity indicated by their interest in unknown or rare songs or bands/singers before looking up to anyone else (6).The photographer clearly conveyed the extent in which popular culture influenced a large number of people through capturing within the frame of this photo the millions of people looking up to Beyonce and by representing her as