Music and Self Image
Music
is one of the great forms of expression available to everyone, in some form or
another. With music, a person can express sadness, happiness, love, loss and
anything else they can imagine. They can use music to tell a story about
something important and meaningful, such as self esteem and body image. Self-image
is a very important in current times as various media presses people to act,
think and look a certain way – an unrealistic ideal that often has a negative
effect on the youth of America. Because popular music reaches such a wide audience,
artists can use their music to talk about these issues so that the listeners do
not feel so alone or overwhelmed.
Body
image is defined by the American Heritage Stedman’s Medical Dictionary as “The subjective concept of one's physical
appearance based on self-observation and reactions of others” (Body Image, 2010).
Body image is how a person views their self through what they see and what they
think others see. Body image is tied into self esteem. Having a positive body
image and high self esteem is important because it means that someone doesn’t
feel that they are worthless, ugly, or unimportant; a negative body image can
create many issues such as depression, poor self esteem, and even lead to
suicide. Because body image can easily be affected by outside sources such as
movies, magazines, and music, these forms of media can
create either positive or negative body image in the audience and many artists
make an effort to help reinforce a positive body image and boost self esteem
with their lyrics.
The group TLC often recorded songs that were on a
reflection on issues within society: their song “UnPretty” is their input on
self esteem and body image. The song discusses how a person can have poor body
image due to someone else in their life if this person makes them feel that
they are nothing special, in this song specifically referring to how the
boyfriend makes his girlfriend feel that even though she once thought that she
was beautiful, she is not and that she needs to get a hair weave, get a nose
job, and use make-up to make herself be pretty (TLC, 1998, track 9). The
narrator of the song feels that she has to change her appearance so that others
will like her but this only leads to the feeling that “My outsides look cool/My
insides are blue” (TLC, 1998, track 9). She never used to feel this way but
after changing so much of herself to make someone else happy, she has lost
herself and no longer loves the person that she has had to become. The song is
from the hip-hop/pop genre and was aimed mainly towards young girls and women
that allow other peoples comments and opinions make them feel that they are
unattractive. The targeted audience is often the majority of the people in the
world that have a poor self image and will use so many extreme measures to make
themselves attractive to please others. The targeted audience can relate to the
sing because it is from another female’s perspective, sang by a female group
with strong female singers.
Another
song about a person feeling that they have to be someone else for others is
“Breathe No More” by the rock group Evanescence. In this song, the main
character stares into a mirror, seeing a person in the mirror that is entirely
different from the person that she sees in real life: “But I know the
difference/Between myself and my reflection” (Evanescence, 2005, track 8). This
song could mean two things: that her reflection is the way that she has to be for
other people in her life and it isn’t the person that she is inside or that the
she spends a lot of time looking at her reflection and seeing all of these
horrible things about herself that are not really true. Either way, “All the
little pieces falling, shatter… Too sharp to put back together” (Evanescence,
2005, track 8) are causing her to feel that she is broken and bleeding inside
and that she cannot be fixed. She even hopes that this is nothing but a
sickness that will go away so that she can be better but she knows that it is
not. The group’s lead singer, Amy Lee, is not just aiming this song towards
females that feel bad but to everyone that has felt this way. She uses
euphemisms and roundabout language similar to poetry to discuss the issue of self
image in this song.
The
all-male hard rock group Linkin Park’s song “Crawling” is another song about a
person that feels lost within because of a drug addiction that they cannot
quit. The lyrics “Crawling in my skin/These wounds they will not heal” (Linkin
Park, 2000, track 5) refers to both the physical consequences of the drug
addiction and the mental wounds that the addiction is causing. The drug
addiction has caused the person to feel so low that “Against my will I stand
beside my own reflection/It’s haunting how I can’t seem/To find myself again” (Linkin
Park, 2000, track 5). The song uses a mix of faster and slower temp for
different parts of the song, alternating between quieter singing for main
lyrics and a louder, angrier chorus.
Pink’s
“Don’t Let Me Get Me” is a song about someone who doesn’t like the person they
are because of the way they behave and how others want them to change. The
subject of the song feels that she is never part of the group and does not fit
the ideal of what people expect of her and this leads to her hating herself,
shown in the lyrics, “Everyday I fight a war against the mirror/I Can’t take
the person starin’ back at me/I’m a hazard to myself” (Pink, 2001, track 2). In
the chorus, she wants to change who she is and be someone else because she has
started to dislike herself so much that she wants to “be somebody else” (Pink,
2001, track 2). Pink’s music is part of the pop industry, although a little
‘grittier’ than most of the music by female pop stars. Pink denounces changing
yourself to fit the normal standards or emulating musical artists that are more
style than substance, telling young woman that they can be much more than just
a pretty face. This helps her audience to relate to her music and listen to its
message because she is telling them that it is okay to be smart.
Christina
Aguilera’s song “Beautiful” is targeted at people that feel insecure and have
poor self image. While briefly touching on the issue with the lyrics “Now and
then, I get so insecure/From all the pain, I’m so ashamed” (Aguilera, 2002,
track 11), the rest of the song offers encouragement. The song is about knowing
your own worth and knowing that you are a beautiful person, regardless of what
others say and do and not to let them “bring you down” (Aguilera, 2002, track
11). The song is aimed at the listeners of pop music, mainly younger women. The
way that Christina Aguilera seems to sing the song with her entire being, as
well as the slower tempo, creates a song that is powerful and supportive.
The
song “Crazy” by Simple Plan is a commentary on the issue of image in society
and not a song from the perspective of someone with poor self image. The lyrics
“Diet Pills, surgery/Photoshopped pictures in magazines/Telling them how they
should be/It doesn’t make sense to me” (Simple Plan, 2004, track 6) express the
band’s concerns over how young woman are influenced by unrealistic expectations
in media and will resort to extreme measures so that they can attain this ideal
image. The song urges people to quit being blind to the world around them and
realize that something is very wrong in society when the things that are
emphasized are material worth and appearance and not the things that should
concern society, such as abuse, the homeless and the starving.
Music
that helps others feel they aren’t alone in their struggles with the self image
often help them get through difficult times, see that there is a problem, and
reach out to get needed help in healing. After a short film about anorexia used
a song by Eleanor McEvoy entitled “Sophie”, the song and film reached many
other sufferers of anorexia and bulimia worldwide. After hearing the song, these
people reached out to get the help that they needed to get better. McEvoy often
hears back from the people the song has helped through her website and in
person at performances. She says that she has gotten “some beautiful letters
from people who’ve taken strength from the song and said they want to beat
anorexia now” (Smith, 2009).
The influence of celebrities and media can also be
used, as some of the songs previously in the essay, to encourage others to feel
good about themselves and not let the ideals of others influence their opinions
of their self-worth. Shaun Robinson, author of the book Exactly As I Am, interviewed celebrities to help young girls see
that the images portrayed in the media are unrealistic. The musical artist
India.Arie discussed how her image was considered a negative in the musical
industry and was told that she would never have a place in the industry.
Instead of listening to others telling her that had the wrong image and look,
she said, “I hold a place and I speak for the girl who feels like an outcast” (Henderson,
2009) and continued on fighting to make a career in the way that she wanted.
The idea that music can be used to
express social issues in society is frequently used within the classroom to
help people that are familiar with these issues through everyday life and
sometimes struggling with them in their own life. The use of music helps tie
the issues into real life in a way that is often easier to understand than just
talking about the issues. Each generation has issues that are a pressing
concern to them and musicians often express and give voice to these concerns, bringing
these issues into light with a much larger audience and making more people
listen and know that these issues exist. Music can emphasize the immediacy of
these issues to student lives, but also to inject a bit of the emotional
dimension that social issues carry-something that music can effectively convey”
(Lewis, 1999) .
Music is way to reach millions of people every day.
While some music is just about having a good time or talking about personal
issues, many musicians use it to reach out to people with a problem or talk
about issues of concern within society. By using their music as a tool to open
people’s eyes, make lives better, and showing that self image issues are
abundant, musicians are helping people be informed and providing encouragement
to suffers to get better and make it through the tough times.
References
Austin,
D and Pink. (2001). Don’t Let Me Get Me [Recorded by Pink]. On Missundaztood [CD]. Arista Records.
Austin,
D. and Tionne Watkins. (1998). UnPretty [Recorded by TLC]. On FanMail [CD]. LaFace Records.
Body
Image. (2002). American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary. Houghton
Mifflin Company.
Bouvier,
P. and Chuck Comeau. (2004). Crazy [Recorded by Simple Plan]. On Still Not Getting Any..[CD].
Lava/Atlantic Records.
Henderson, S. (2009,
December). Boosting your child's self-esteem. Ebony, LXV(2), 118.
Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic.
Lee,
A. (2005). Breathe No More [Recorded by Evanescence]. On Anywhere but Home [CD]. New York, NY: Wind-up Records.
Lewis, G. (1999). Traps,
troubles, and social issues: Country music in the social science classroom. Popular
Music and Society, 23(4), 61-82. Retrieved from ProQuest.
Perry,
L. (2002). Beautiful [Recorded by Christina Aguilera]. On Stripped [CD]. California: RCA Records.
Smith, D. (2009, January 4).
Focus: Music therapy. The Observer. Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic.
Wakefield,
M. and Linkin Park. (2000). Crawling [Recorded by Linkin Park]. On Hybrid Theory [CD]. New Orleans, LA.
Warner Bros.
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