Cultivating a False Reality

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Men and women play different roles in today’s society. The perception of these typical gender roles is the outcome of many years of seeing in the media how women and men are supposed to act. The cultivation theory explains perfectly how society today perceives men and women’s roles.

The cultivation theory states that over time, seeing how the media represents reality, the audience creates a new reality for themselves. The media does not depict reality, but it can be easy to fall subject to this unrealistic society portrayed in the media. In this reality, men are the ones in charge, strong and brave; women live to be pretty and to find a man to serve.

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In Killing Us Softly 3, Jean Kilbourne exposes the so-called reality depicted by advertisers. Women in the media are never fat, always gorgeous and inferior to men. Is this the ideal woman that every man intends to find? The reality is that this woman does not exist, but the media has successfully shown her countless times and skewed society’s view of an actual woman. In Tough Guise, Jackson Katz lays out the changes men’s images have undergone over the years in the media. From movies to toys, men are depicted as macho tough guys. Over time, men are being depicted as more aggressive, violent and strong. This translates to how men think they need to be perceived and their reality is skewed. The media hardly ever depicts a real man or woman and in the real world people often times are walking around trying to be how they think they should be in relation to media representations.

If society were not overly exposed to these ideas in the media, would these ideas still exist? Whether this be reality or not, it is not likely that the media will stop using skinny women and overly bulked up men in movies or advertising. It is up to the audience to create their own reality not based on these influences.