The idolisation of men in media and its effect on women in turkey

I am an eighteen years old girl living in Turkey. During the last week, I realized something and I decided to share it with you. If you have ever looked at the magazine covers or watched the advertisements on TV carefully, I think you would be also aware of the thing that I noticed. Now, turn on your television and find an advertisement or take a magazine. Shoot a glance at them and think about the first thing that caught your attention. Men, right? So, here is my question for you: What is the relationship between the men we know in our daily lives and the men on magazine covers and on advertisements? Actually, there are very less common things between them. They differ a lot. The men on magazine covers and on advertisements are less real and more perfect. They really look like the princes in fairy tales. They are ideal with their appearances, muscles, smiles, weights, facial expressions, dressing styles, glances, etc. Despite of this, there are not those kinds of men in our daily lives a lot. For this reason, it is obvious that men are stereotyped by the media. Stereotyping is affecting our expectations for men, how they should be and how they should not be. This restricts our views of what men can be and do.

We begin to idealize men by just looking at magazine covers and advertisements. That is why we expect more from men in relationships. For instance, the man on this magazine cover is a Turk actor, and he is known for his handsomeness and sexiness. Many girls and even many women die to see him. He looks ideal with his glance, his muscles, his facial expression and his dressing style, but here is a picture which shows how he looks in his daily life. Most of his handsomeness and sexiness is gone. He is like one of the men we see in our everyday lives. This man on another magazine cover is also a Turk actor. He is known with his muscular body and smile. He looks ideal, too. Let me introduce him in a different picture. I can guess that you are shocked. You cannot believe they are the same men, but unfortunately they are. This is a photo from an advertisement of a shampoo that was shot in Turkey. He is an actor and most of the girls and women think that he looks perfect with his body and his swarthiness. He is the dream of most of the females in Turkey.

You are also wondering about his appearance in daily life. Here it is. He, too looks so different, right? What I want to say is that let’s not believe in this stereotypes. We should be aware of the things that are going around us. We should not have faith in ideal men which is created by the media with the help of magazine covers and advertisements. Hi, I am also writing from Turkey, and I am a middle – aged woman. First of all I should say that you are absolutely right. After I read your blog, I thought the same thing. The media in Turkey is leading us to idealize men. Creating stereotype is very easy for the media, and media production is satisfied with the respond of the audience. For example, us. Media created a stereotype of men, and most of us just indigenized it. As you said, it is not what it is supposed to be. We all should be conscious. I am writing this blog as a response to Özge Ertekin – that is why it is short – who said “ The media in Turkey is leading us to idealize men. Creating stereotype is very easy for the media, and media production is satisfied with the respond of the audience. For example, us. Media created a stereotype of men, and most of us just indigenized it. As you said, it is not what it is supposed to be.

We all should be conscious. ” I should say that while watching TV or checking on a magazine, we should know how they treat males, how we relate to them and how they affect our ideas about masculinity. Only the good sides of men are reflected in media. Sorry, but I do not agree with you. I think the aim of magazines and advertisements is not to create a stereotype of men. They are having good – looking men on advertisements and on magazine covers in order to catch the attention of women just because they want the magazines to be sold and the advertisements to be watched. You cannot just say that they shape the stereotyping for men. This time I am writing this blog as a response to Eslem Işık. I do not know if you have ever recognized, but look around yourself. I am absolutely sure that you will realize many women who are waiting for the ideal men to get married. They think that all the men in the world are the same with the men on advertisements and on magazine covers since they idealize them because of the stereotypes created by the media.

You know, they just wait for one of them to marry. Moreover, this issue does not belong to just women nowadays, it improved itself. This process starts from the childhood and continues with the teenage years. If you have a teenage cousin or a little niece, ask her the type of man she wants to be married. You can be sure that she will show you a photo of a man that had another photo on a magazine cover or acted in a commercial film. She will tell you that she wants to have a husband like the one on the photo, or she will be marrying a man like him. Those advertisements and magazine covers make us idealize men even from childhood. We should be aware of it.