Proposal

Song 1:

Scars to your beautiful, Alessia Cara

Music video (significant):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWASeaYuHZo

Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/track/42ydLwx4i5V49RXHOozJZq

Song 2:

Music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPHKkewD1G0

Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/track/6ZtiywT2Qm50a1uR0jlY35

 

My top choice for this podcast assignment is the song Scars To Your Beautiful, by Alessia Cara. This is a song that exposes the reality of what it is like to be a woman living in a world where there is a constant pressure to look a certain way, and obtain a certain beauty standard that is simply unattainable. This song came out in 2016, during which social media was at its peak for the first time. The standard for women and the way they should look was raised due to the influence of social media, thus creating a crisis when it came to girls’ and women’s body image. This song challenges the unrealistic ideas that the media and society have created around women’s body image, and Cara argues that this standard is unrealistic. 

 

This song has an extremely powerful music video as well, where many different women (and men) who don’t fit society’s expectation of “beautiful” come out and share their experiences with their own body image and self-worth struggles. The video highlights these women’s true beauty and is using this as a statement to challenge these standards created by the media. 

 

My second choice song is “Sit Still Look Pretty” by Daya. This song is very similar to Alessia Caras’ song in the sense that it challenges society’s expectations of what women should be/how she should look. Cara makes fun of this idea of the “male gaze” and how many men in today’s societies think that a woman should act. She refers to the fact that in America, many times women are told to “sit still and look pretty” and to act like a trophy wife. She alludes to the idea that many times society pulls at the idea that all women are good for is her body and looking good for men. She argues against this ideology by saying that she rather be by herself, and not consider what society deems as pretty if that means she doesn’t have to conform to these sexist notions created by men and media in our society. 

 

Both of these songs have significant meaning to me. Personally, growing up with the media, I have faced my own battles with body image and meeting society’s standards of what young women should look like. The trend to look a certain way is constantly changing, and I fell into the hole of trying to keep up with these trends. Something that I have always been passionate about is the impact that social media really does have on our society, and I think it is crucial in today’s era to be extremely aware of these effects that media has. These songs send out such a strong message dissing the media and sending the message that the media is fake and that everyone is beautiful regardless of what the media says. This is such a powerful message that I know had immense impacts on little girls (including myself) in America when both songs were released, showing that being a woman is much more than having a perfect and unrealistic body catered towards men.  

My only concern about this project is being able to have enough content to present. I am an avid podcast listener, and often times the podcasts I listen to are almost an hour long. I am very passionate about the messages these songs send, but I am not sure if I can talk about them for that long. Other than that I am excited to dive into this project!