So you’re saying you don’t like the way pop culture idealizes women for traits other then knowledge, and intelligence?  That seems reasonable enough.  I don’t think pop culture shows knowledge and intelligence in a positive light for either sex.  For example have you ever watched the show jackass?  Not much knowledge and intelligence portrayed in that show. Our culture (I’m assuming were talking about western culture) doesn’t seem to place much value on these characteristics.  If you were able to remake pop culture in any way you want how would it be different? 

[Edit: Changed portrays into portrayed]

It's interesting to me that the majority of complaints about "media pressure" I ever hear almost unanimously come from females, but I'm not immediately convinced that this is entirely because the media is ONLY unfair TO females. This is not to say that their complaints are not warranted or that there is equal pressure from the media on both males and females. I would only point out that there is pressure on males, too. I'm reminded of the internet famous gender poem (of which there are many variations):

I think there is some degree of pressure on both genders, though again I'm not saying there is necessarily an equal balance. I don't know at all how it balances out. But I think there is a psychological difference between the way males and females react to pressures like these.

For example, put your average woman in line at the bank and have the man behind her check out her ass. Most would wager that, most often, the woman's reaction would be to feel uncomfortable or to take offense.

Put a man in the same bank line and have a woman check out his ass, regardless of how attractive he finds her, and nine times out of ten the man's response will be along the lines of "Yeah, baby, you like it."

I've also noticed that it has long been an acceptable trend, especially among female comedians, to criticize the intelligence of males in general. Men generally don't seem to care. They'll even laugh about the joke and high five each other as if to say, "Yeah! That's us! The stupid ones! WoOoOooo!" I'm not sure I've ever witnessed an instance of any program, advertisement, or comedian calling the intelligence of females in general into question and getting away with it. I think, per above, this is probably because males enjoy it when their stupidity is acknowledged because of the pressure to be the "knower" and females enjoy it because of their desire to be recognized as people who are equally capable of knowing things.

I guess my point is that I'm of the impression that there is a general pressure struggle going on that isn't exclusively about sexuality, but is about gender expectations in general, and it ultimately goes both ways. Looking at society today versus forty or fifty years ago, it seems we've made some progress as far as rebelling against those pressures.

It seems that men generally don't raise a fuss about media pressure the way women seem to, though; and I'm curious as to why that might be. I think part of it is probably psychological, since men seem to be more passive, which is not necessarily a good thing. (Just look at the way men and women argue with each other.) But I also wonder if men, due to the whole pressure to be be "head of the household" or "wear the big pants" or however you want to look at it, have a different way of resisting advertising than females, which is to largely ignore it. I was actually just listening to a report on NPR the other day about how ad boutiques are freaking out a little bit over the fact that printed and television advertising are statistically very ineffective anymore.

So I wonder if males resist advertising pressure by being stubborn and ignoring advertising, while females resist advertising pressure by questioning the ethics of its content.

Haha, awesome. Actually, this is a good opportunity for me to throw out my own feelings.

Paris Hilton: Not fucking hot. She looks like a bird-woman.

But the biggest alleged "celebrity hottie" I have NEVER been able to understand: Drew Barrymore?!

I have honestly never been able to figure out where this rumor came from that she is sexy. It baffles me. I find her about as sexy as Oprah (though not as annoying or evil, obviously.)

Personally, I think almost anyone could look hot with a fake tan, a photoshoot, and a few swishes from the corrective air brush. (I mean, take Adriana Lima for example. Super sexy in photoshoot, but have you ever seen a high-resolution, non-air-brushed photo? The make-up gets thicker than the skin on her face sometimes!)

I prefer the beauty and sexiness on my women the same way I prefer the boobs on my women: all natural. I don't want to have to wash my face after every make-out.

So while I do totally stare at fake airbrushed photos, I know their fake. (Hell, I'm comfortable saying Jessica Rabbit is hot, and how are girls supposed to mimic that?) It's much more impressive to me if girls are still good looking without the clown make-up.

Now if only I myself weren't so ugly.

     EDIT                                           

Oh, and Happy New Year, Cappy!

It's easy to say that media puts pressure on us (females in particular) to attain a physical appearance which is unrealistic ind in many cases downright unhealthy, mostly because it is almost true. Polish, smoothness and symmetry appeal to our aesthetic senses and promoters exploit this phenomena by any means necessary, advances in artistic skill and the technology available to augment it are fair and reasonable game for capitalist interests, while common sense tells us that enforcing a social environment where human expectations sit mainly in the realm of pure fantasy isn't something that is fair and reasonable. So it comes down to a clash of interests between our psychology and our bottom line.

The thing though is that this issue doesn't play out outside ourselves, we (girls that means us) make the decision between these interests every second of every day, it's us enforcing the pressure on ourselves that makes the real difference.  The fact of the matter is what doesn't sell gets discontinued. As long as we buy bullshit, there's an endless supply of it for the having. 

I personally agree with your sentiment Cpt, but not with the idea that debating it is at all worthwhile, you've got to vote with your feet it's the one thing that even the most deeply morally bankrupt peddler of bullshit will truly understand.

You know, I think that this may be on it's way out.  I was watching The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray at 1080i (not even 1080p!) last night and Maggie Gyllenhall's face (and everybody else's, for that matter) looked like the surface of the moon.  Give digital technology enough time to proliferate and everybody who isn't rendered by Pixar is going to start looking more like they do in real life.  That's not to say the impossible standard will go away, but the notion of achievable physical perfection that we grew up with is not going to be there for the younger generation.  

I'd like to drop a link to a documentary series I once saw on YouTube. It's called "The Century of the Self", which goes over some of the creation and evolution of marketing.

Here's the first part:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3LSyck0YTE

Back in the 70s I wished I looked like Robert Plant of Led Zep. I wished I could sing Black Dog to the masses with my shirt off baring my chest and abs. Or for that matter, I wished I looked like Jim Morrison of the Doors. But I would never have considered them role models. My role models were Carl Sagan and later on Stephen Hawking. And despite being called a "dweeb" I was strongly inspired by my math and physics teachers who somehow motivated me to pursue Medicine.

And yet I'm sure there are those who fanatically worshipped Robert Plant to the point of self annihilation and are now seeking therapy from substance abuse.

In a free society, watching media (particularly sexy media) is like walking through a field of beautiful roses covered in thorns. The trick is navigating to avoid the thorns. Burning the roses (ie. censorship) to forever rid us of the thorns is not a realistic solution. So then what is the solution other than bitch about how big tit Pussycat Dolls are creating unrealistic beauty standards?

The solution comes from a society professing reason and rationalism rather than lauding mediocrity from young adults whose lives seem (to the point of extreme stupidity) to be wrapped up with idolizing Britney Spears instead of an intellect like Christianne Amampour (whom I personally think looks very hot by the way).

It is a harsh truth that young adults who embrace Britney are also the same morons who obediently follow religious scripture and have archaic views of human sexuality. If subjects like neuroscience and evolutionary psychology were part of high school curriculum, then students may break out of their mind numbing Tila Tequila culture and see sexual attraction for what it really is ie. an innate drive that we all possess. And in that context looking sexy and being sexually attracted to another are as intellectual as enjoying math and science.