CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM

Cuban Female Viewers’ Processing of Contravening Beauty Ideals

in Movie Melodrama Affecting their Body Esteem

Authors Note

Pierre Wilhelm, Ph.D.

Faculty of Business

Athabasca University

Athabasca, Canada

pierre.wilhelm@fb.athabascau.ca

Lazaro Dibut, Ph.D.

Graduate Studies

Universidad del Golfo de California

Los Cabos, Mexico

ldibut2001@yahoo.es

Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Pierre Wilhelm,

Faculty of Business, Athabasca University, Canada

Contact: pierre.wilhelm@fb.athabascau.ca
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 2

Abstract

This exploratory study investigates Cuban female viewers’ processing of movie melodrama

featuring contravening realistic and unrealistic feminine beauty ideals. It assesses participants’

body esteem responses to a beauty conflict depicting a daughter and her mother’s arguing over

these two ideals. It contrasts two message orientations; one montage illustrates movie characters’

support for the young female protagonist’s realistic look and calls on women to assess their

appearance on personal terms. Another demonstrates the mother’s criticism of her daughter’s full

figure and compels viewers to reject a thin ideal. This study relies on the Elaboration Likelihood

Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) to account for viewers’ attentive or heuristic processing of these

two beauty ideals. Viewers’ antecedent knowledge about a thin ideal of feminine beauty they

recalled in the company of female peers and from their past exposure to mass media fare strongly

two information processing processes that undermined their body esteem.

Key words: gender communication, message processing, beauty ideals, body esteem
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 3

Cuban Female Viewers’ Processing of Contravening Beauty Ideals

in Movie Melodrama Affecting their Body Esteem

Few researchers have examined the state of young Cuban women’s body esteem at a time

when this island nation is opening up to the world. A rising generation of young Cubanas is

rapidly becoming accustomed to consumer values, attitudes and images, including novel ideals of

feminine beauty, that their parents were never exposed to when growing up. As well, little

research has been conducted in this country about the topic of body image disturbances and a

possible link between women’s attention to a thin ideal of feminine beauty reinforced along

interpersonal and mass media channels, and their poor body esteem. Yet, as Reyes Forster (2012)

argues, the social preference for an iconic thin look in Latin American media challenges women’s

core identity. Moreover, as Franco Paredes, Mancilla-Vázquez, Lopez-Aguilar and Álvarez-

Rayon (2011) explain, the widespread occurrence of poor body disturbances in neighboring Latin

American countries cuts across all social classes and affects women in all regions regardless of

racial distinctions. García Calderón (2008) contends that a beautiful woman portrayed on Latin

American television or in the movies typically features blue eyes, a tall, slim silhouette, an

exaggerated bust and blond hair. Piñon, Maybel, and Hernández (2014) write that most Latinas

feel powerless when faced with having to measure up to a consumer ideology that validates such a

foreign look as the distinct and privileged category of a minority of the population. Similarly,

Franco-Paredes, Mancilla-Vázquez, Lopez-Aguilar, and Álvarez-Rayon (2011) observe that

comparing one’s appearance to this unrealistic standard of beauty leads many Latin American

women to experience a loss of identity, along with feelings of isolation, low self-esteem and
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 4

anxiety. The authors point to the interpersonal and mass media reinforcement of such a look as

undermining and devaluing the uniqueness of Latin American women’s true racial blend or

mestisaje.

To date, however, Cuban researchers generally consider women’s poor body esteem more

as a personal matter than as a community issue. This topic is addressed in research literature in

terms of young women’s overall body-health experience (Suárez, Fernández, Jardínez, & Acosta,

2011). As well, it appears in studies examining Cuban women’s breast surgery for cancer (Núñez,

2012). It is evident in research examining an increasing rate of obesity among young Cubans

females (Esquivel & González, 2010). Moreover, it figures in an investigative report examining

Cuban women’s strenuous exercising (Barrios Duarte, 2010).

Research Objectives

This study follows a mixed method investigative approach (Creswell & Clark, 2006). It

examines young Cuban women’s attention to movie melodrama highlighting scenes of conflict

opposing a college-age Latin American woman to her mother over contravening realistic and

unrealistic ideals of feminine beauty. Correspondingly, it assesses female viewers’ changing body

esteem responses to test movie fare as an overall movie processing effect potentially improving or

undermining these women’s appreciation of their appearance.

Real Women Have Curves (Brown, Lavoo, Lopez & Cardoso, 2002), the Hollywood movie

on which this study is based, depicts the fictional Garcia family and their friends and relatives. All

characters live and interact with one another in a working class barrio or neighborhood of Los

Angeles. Movie scenes purposely dubbed from English to Spanish for this study situate movie
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 5

characters’ relational problems in familiar settings that represent people in conventional roles.

Through its melodramatic design, this movie attempts to raise female viewers’ awareness

about the social and cultural core beliefs that many women entertain about beauty ideals (Cash,

Morrow, Hrabosky, & Perry, 2004). It pitches two very unusual and at times unsettling persuasive

propositions to its mainly female audience.

In its persuasive design, one movie montage motivates viewers to favor the realistic ideal

of beauty that its young female protagonist, Ana embodies. This message urges women to strive to

gain an appreciation of feminine beauty on their own terms. To this end, it focuses viewers’

attention on the arguments that Ana uses to refute her mother’s cruel verbal attacks on her

appearance. To put it simply, this movie favors her full-figure and demonstrates its approval of

Ana’s looks by focusing female viewers’ attention on movie scenes highlighting support for Ana

and denoting inclusiveness. This movie montage downplays any dramatic intensity by depicting

Ana going about her daily activities self-assuredly. Importantly, it invites viewers to take side with

Ana and to buy into her ideal of beauty through a socio-inclusive appeal. Such an appeal may

potentially benefit female viewers’ assessment of their own appearance (Leahey, LaRose, Fava &

Wing, 2011). For this reason, this montage is one that researchers label as positive in orientation.

Another montage focuses female viewers’ attention to movie scenes denoting social

exclusion while increasing dramatic tension. For example, Doña Carmen appears in numerous

scenes where she verbally undermines her daughter’s appearance and reputation in front of family

friends and relatives. She insists that her daughter measure up to a thin look by dieting and by

losing weight. This particular version of the movie forces viewers to share Ana’s feelings of

rejection without allowing this young woman to respond to her mother’s cruel words. Importantly,
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 6

this second montage invites female viewers to side against Ana’s mother’s actions and,

correspondingly, against the thin beauty ideal she champions. Coming to terms with this particular

movie version, however, may prove difficult for young female viewers who have never breached

mother-daughter bonds, or else witnessed such scenes of conflict. For, as Wentzel et al. (2014)

explain, a mother’s nurturance is related positively with her daughter’s physical self-worth. Thus,

viewing this particular montage may in fact be detrimental to female viewers’ body esteem. This

explains why researchers refer to this particular message orientation as negative.

By selecting, editing and reassembling movie scenes in two movie montages to which it

exposes two different groups of college-age Cuban female participants, researchers thus purposely

reinforce contravening beauty appeals along two distinct message orientations.

Literature Review

Message Processing Conditions

Body esteem researchers’ conceptualization of media message-processing as a receiver-

oriented response to a stereotypically thin look has, to a certain extent, delimited the field of

enquiry to a study about female viewers’ attention and responses to image stimuli. Unfortunately,

a dearth of investigative knowledge exists about viewers’ dynamic and personally-involving

message processing of more complex messages such as movie or television narrative featuring

beauty-related information. How viewing such programs addressing the topic of women’s

appearance may potentially undermine or improve women’s body esteem is a communication

problem that remains unclear (Tiggemann, 2003; Levine & Murnen 2009).
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 7

In order to explain how media audiences perceive and make sense of movie narrative, Metz

(1964) describes cinema’s particular structure and composition as comprising freely articulated

and interrelated forms of meaning. The French movie theorist explains that editing movies by

selecting, cutting, sequencing and assembling movie scenes into cinematic narrative is an

expression of the cinematographer’s artistic intention. But, the author adds, making sense of this

movie montage, on the other hand, is in the viewer’s purview. He or she must process an

unbelievable assemblage of disparate ideas, expressions, movements, sounds, images and

techniques as the believable expression of a social and cultural reality. Both movie perspectives

thus share symbolic meaning in separate contexts and in separate times.

Moreover, in order to explain how viewers make sense of cinema narrative, as with

television’s programs’ underlying structure, Annese (2004) indicates that viewers must anticipate

and judge interpersonal situations appearing onscreen. As the author explains it, viewers must

compare movie scenes to their everyday interactions with important people and to their knowledge

about social and cultural realities. According to Hartmann (2002), audience members must be

adept at attributing relational and contextual meaning to movie scenes and to the movie characters

that interact onscreen in order to make sense of movie narrative’s overall composition.

In spite of a dearth of research findings about media information processing as a personally

involving and dynamic perceptual process, communication and body esteem scholars have

nevertheless invested much time and effort investigating how young women respond to still and

moving images depicting a thin look of feminine beauty. Investigators describe female viewers’

internalization of a thin ideal portrayed in the media as a biased form of information-processing

increasing women’s vulnerability to body-related issues and anxiety (Blanton & Stappel, 2008).
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 8

They point to viewers’ social comparison with image representations of this ideal as a key factor

contributing to body-image disturbances (Brown & Dittmar, 2005). As researchers indicate,

female viewers may be susceptible to a body thinness fantasy affecting their disposition to process

message stimuli (Mills, Polivy, Herman & Tiggeman, 2002). Among other factors influencing

how female viewers’ make sense of beauty information communicated to them through mass

media channels, researchers distinguish between viewers’ conscious or unconscious message

processing (Blanton & Staple, 2008). Similarly, investigators contrast viewers’ cognitive,

affective or behavioral responses to media message (Engeln-Maddox, 2005). Importantly as well

for this study’s purpose, researchers highlight how female viewers’ attentive or fleeting message

processing may affect their body esteem (Brown & Dittmar, 2005).

Viewers’ Attentive or Inattentive Message Processing

To investigate the dynamic nature of college female Cuban students’ attention to message

meaning in terms of movie denotations and connotations, this exploratory study relies on the

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) for guidance and interpretation (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).

This model helps explain how female viewers’ complex processing of movie messages occurring

under high or low level of attention may concurrently influence their body esteem. Its authors

contend that when movie audience members process media messages under an attentive, conscious

and involving consideration, their attitudes about feminine beauty and about their own appearance

may yield to key message ideas and propositions advocated in this message. Or else, the pre-

established attitudes these viewers hold about their appearance may become further resistant to

change. The strength of such resistance, Brown and Dittmar (2005) explain, usually predict the
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 9

intensity of a behavior that women may engage in order to try to emulate a desired beauty ideal.

But, as Schrum (2002) indicates, viewers may also simply reject either proposition on the basis of

beauty attitudes, interests or concerns they may already harbor. Petty and Cacioppo (1986)

describe viewers’ strong attention to media message information and its ensuing communication

effects as following a central route.

In comparison, message recipients who process media fare inattentively along a peripheral

route may be swayed by positive or negative message cues establishing an overall processing

mood. These viewers may in fact adopt a personal position about the movie simply by paying

attention to a character’s attractive beauty and appearance that may reinforce a pre-existing attitude

(Petty, Priester & Briñol, 2002). Such a peripheral processing effect, nevertheless, can elicit a

short term but powerful effect on viewers (Shrum, 2002). Petty and Cacioppo (1986) describe

viewers’ limited or fleeting attention to media message information and its ensuing effect on them

as following a peripheral route.

Research Questions

How college age Cuban female viewers, regrouped into two distinct viewing groups will

respond to the two contravening beauty propositions communicated to them in two different movie

montages is impossible to predict or to hypothesize. Many confounding factors could influence

these women’s information processing experience in ways not anticipated by movie producers

(Brown, Lavoo, Lopez, & Cardoso, 2002). For this reason, research questions guiding this

exploratory study adopt a backward-looking inquiry approach that helps explain, not anticipate

group communication outcomes.

CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 10

Question 1

This first research question considers college-age Cuban female viewers’ processing of one of two

different movie montage reinforcing two beauty-related messages.

1a. Will female participants in a study group processing a positive movie montage favoring a

realistic ideal of feminine beauty improve or worsen their body esteem?

1b. Will female participants in another study group processing a negative movie montage

inciting them to criticize an unrealistic ideal of beauty improve or worsen their body

esteem?

In order to answer these questions, researchers will initially consider viewers’ levels of

attention to movie denotations potentially determining their changing body esteem in two study

groups. They will examine viewers’ parasocial processing of the movie drama in light of

participants’ interaction with characters presented onscreen (Hartmann, 2008). Similarly,

researchers will pay attention to the relational meaning that female viewers derive about feminine

beauty from the movie drama that, they assume, may negatively affect their body esteem. As

Moyer-Gusé and Nabi (2010) explain, the stronger viewers respond emotionally, affectively or

thoughtfully to movie characters’ expressions, the stronger a message processing effect may

manifest itself. Thus, the movie under investigation has to be entertaining, griping and perhaps

shocking enough to sustain female viewers’ interest about an unfolding beauty drama, its plot and

its resolution. Otherwise, women participants may not commit to one or another beauty issues that

lead key movie characters to spar and attack one another.

Body esteem researchers generally conceptualize female viewers’ message-processing of

mass media fare and its effects on their appearance appreciation in terms of their buying into a
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 11

socially defined ideal of beauty and attractiveness denoted onscreen (Thompson & Stice, 2001).

This particular study further contends that female viewers’ body esteem changes may depend on

whether they express the need to socially fit in with the movie protagonist and her realistic beauty

(Wentzel et al., 2014). Viewers who attempt to make sense of the montage they watch will also

need to come to terms with Doña Carmen’s cruel characterization of a thin ideal of feminine

beauty in order to decide whether to accept or reject this lady’s beauty proposition.

Question 2

A second research question concerns both study groups.

2. Will viewers’ antecedent relational knowledge about beauty and appearance evoked from

past interactions with significant people improve or worsen their body esteem?

Tiggeman (2003) points to the influence that young women’s peers and significant adults

play as agents reinforcing a thin ideal of beauty in viewers’ relational circles. More specifically,

Thompson and Stice (2001) assert that female viewers’ socio-evaluative thoughts about fitting in

with a social group concerning the benefits of thinness influences their body esteem. Thus, on a

corresponding message level, that of viewers’ attention to movie connotations, researchers will

examine whether the antecedent relational knowledge about beauty viewers recall in the company

of others living in Cienfuegos, Cuba concurrently helps determines processing outcomes.

Question 3

A third research question concerns both study groups as well.

3. Will viewers’ antecedent socio-cultural knowledge about beauty and women’s appearance

evoked from a lifelong exposure to the mass media improve or worsen their body esteem?
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 12

The cumulated effect of mass media’s portrayals of certain values, body types and related

beauty attitudes in the mass media, Tiggeman(2003) contends, can create social pressure to

conform to a socially preferred thin ideal of feminine beauty and prompt women’s attempt to

socially fit in by emulating this look. Paying strong attention to socio-cultural standards of beauty

in this movie may accentuate female participants’ belief that a slender, youthful, and physically

thin appearance is valued as attractive in their culture and in their community (Thompson & Stice,

2001). As female viewers process one or another movie melodrama montage, they may also recall

assumptions, facts, attitudes, feelings about beauty that they have acquired over a lifetime of

exposure to mass media programs (Levine & Murnen 2009).

Methodology

Rationale

Researchers followed a two-phase exploratory design procedure that initially relied on

results of a qualitative study to explore this communication problem. In turn, they coded viewers’

written answers to pre-test and posttest questionnaires to identify emerging thematic categories

that helped them contrast how contravening study group members responded to particular message

treatments. Quantifying viewers’ comments into data also helped researchers determine key

answer categories highlighting viewers’ attention to the topics and situations under study. The

correlational method of analysis researchers used in this study indicated whether female viewers’

degree of attention to particular message content corresponded to changes in their body

appreciation. Data analyses enabled researcher to consider the soundness of the novel conceptual
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 13

framework and instruments they developed for this study and to discuss ways to enhance and

replicate this study’s instruments (Creswell & Clark, 2006).

Sample and Procedures

First and second-year undergraduate students attending classes at the Universidad de

Cienfuegos, on the Caribbean coast of Cuba were recruited and randomly assigned to one of three

study groups. Thirty five female students were designated to view a positive movie montage and

an equal number of female participants were assigned to view a negative movie version. Another

ten students participated in a control group to test a neutral message viewing effect. All students

were aged between 18 and 24 years. Researchers conducted a blind study to ensure that research

assistants and participants had not been sensitized to the study’s overall research objectives. As

well, they excluded participants enrolled in medical, psychology, or in gender communication

studies who may have more readily been able to detect the study’s purpose than others. Research

assistants registered participants’ informed consent in the three study groups prior to the start of

the investigation. A pre-test session occurred one week ahead of a movie viewing session in order

to dull viewers’ recollection of pretest questions repeated in the post test. Debriefing sessions

followed movie viewing and post testing sessions.

Researchers informed assistants and participants about the study’s objectives during a

prolonged question-and-answer period held at the end of each posttest session. All investigative

procedures and instruments were approved by a research Ethics Board at a North American

university. Similarly, all movie content used in this study was cleared by the Institution’s

Copyright officer.
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 14

Montage Structure

Movie montage editors ensured that all dialogues could be readily understood by a

Spanish-speaking audience. At their onset, both montages highlighted contravening beauty issues

and underscored the protagonist’s strength and vulnerability in light of the interpersonal challenges

she faced. Their editing structures then followed Bursch’ advice (1986) that an assemblage of

scenes should follow a logical construction and focus its most impactful information at the end.

Researchers relied on Meyers and Biocca’s (1992) findings indicating that an exposure of thirty

minutes to a media program portraying a thin look is long enough for female viewers to conclude

whether they can or cannot measure up to a thin beauty ideal. For this study’ s purpose,

researchers assumed that female participants could reach a similar conclusion after twenty minutes

of exposure under viewing conditions of low or high dramatic intensity.

Questionnaires

Researchers relied on the Tripartite Influence Model of body image (Van den Berg,

Thompson, Obremski-Brandon & Coovert, 2002) to design pre-test and posttest questionnaires for

this study. The authors suggest that three primary agents of reinforcement of a thin ideal of beauty

form the basis for women’s development of body image and related body dysfunctions. The

Tripartite model highlights participants’ recollection of peer, parental and media experiences that

play a significant influential role in developing self-restrictive attitudes. These research

contributors consider that such attitudes can detrimentally affect female viewers’ intention to alter

their weight, appearance, and figure.

CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 15

As well, researchers relied on testing instruments that they considered useful to collect

pretest descriptive data, notably that of a body-mass scale designed to assess adolescents and

adults’ height and weight (Mendelson, Mendelson &White, 2001). Similarly, investigators

designed a nine-figure silhouette rating chart to assess viewers’ pre-test perception of their own

body size that they adapted from Stunkard, Sorenson, and Schlusinger (1998). They modified this

chart by relying on human-like animal figures rather than women’s silhouettes to gather

participants’ perception of their appearance; this design respected participants’ appearance-related

sensibilities. Both research instruments were test-piloted by university students in two Mexican

universities.

Coding

All results were coded by two independent coders who quantified viewers’ written pre-test

and post-test comments following a general thematic analysis that identified common answer

categories. Researchers established coding standards that both coders followed to ascertain that

they could take the same coding decisions independently (Neuendorf, 2011). Only 44

discrepancies appeared out of 208 cases during test coding trials (44:208 = .212). Coders agreed

82% of the time. This level of inter-coder agreement appeared acceptable for an exploratory study

(Lombard, Snyder-Dutch, & Bracken, 2002). Researchers interpreted all qualitative information

numerically and categorically.

Analyses

Dependent Variables
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 16

Researchers contrasted group pre-test and posttest body esteem results examining

addressing sub factors of a woman’s global self-esteem. They observed viewers’ changing

perception about their weight, height and figure in two treatment groups to determine whether

group results differed. Along with findings by Mendelson, Mendelson and White (2001), they

considered that a woman’s perception about her weight, figure and appearance are central to her

appearance appreciation. As well, the researchers examined correlational results indicating

whether viewers intended to change their habits in order to meet an ideal weight, appearance and

figure. Ajzen and Fishbein (2005) explain that women’s expressed intentions to engage in

appearance or weight altering behavior holds predictive validity. Researchers assumed that such

intentions manifest increasing appearance-related anxiety. Researchers considered female

viewers’ body esteem responses to two movie montages as an overall message processing outcome

influenced by their attention to independent movie processing message variables.

Independent Variables

As previously explained, researchers analyzed correlational results highlighting viewers’

parasocial attention to movie characters and to the beauty conflict taking place onscreen in terms

of viewers’ processing of movie denotations in two study groups. Moreover, they assessed female

viewers’ evocation of antecedent knowledge about beauty potentially affecting these women’s

body esteem changes in two different study groups. They distinguished viewers’ evocation of

appearance-related information shared among significant adults or else communicated through the

mass media. Results correlating dependent measures of the interaction between independent

variables were assessed in light of dual message processing routes and corresponding message

effects explained by the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 17

Accounting for Potential Analytical Errors

Researchers hoped to obtain correlational results at a (p ≥.4) Pearson correlational

coefficient significance level indicating a moderate negative or positive correlational result. They

relied on a coefficient of determination of p < .05 to select correlations and thus limit the chance

that they could erroneously conclude that significant correlations occurred when such results may

in fact have been generated by multiple correlational comparisons. Similarly, as part of a

determination of valid correlational results, researchers selected results by examining the square of

the coefficient correlation. Furthermore, they assessed correlational results in two study groups by

comparing them to those provided by a control group asked to view a generic movie addressing the

topic of environmental changes in Cuba. Posttest measures female viewers’ perceptions about

their weight, appearance and figure in this control group demonstrated high levels of inter-variable

stability. For example, a correlation linking viewers’ perception of their weight with that of their

appearance produced a Cramer’s V test result of .829 and a contingency coefficient of .761.

Similarly, a correlation linking these viewers’ perception about their weight with that of their

intention to alter their behavior to reach an ideal weight produced a Cramer’s V test result of .729

and a contingency coefficient of .718.

Results

Viewers’ Processing of Movie Denotations Affecting Their Body Esteem

Viewing a positive message. Negative correlational results linked female participants’

processing of a positive movie montage favoring Ana’s realistic ideal to a noticeable drop in their

intention to attain an ideal weight (Table 1). These women viewers signaled their intention to
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 18

modify their behavior in order to reach an ideal appearance and figure, thus manifesting increasing

anxiety. Yet, these viewers appeared to have paid only general attention to the movie montage as a

whole and appeared not to engage movie characters directly in a parasocial association. Absent

from this group’s correlational results was any indication that paying attention to principal

characters’ differences of opinion about feminine beauty affected their appearance appreciation

(Table 1). Participants’ attention to this movie’s realistic beauty appeal seemed to have been

general, spontaneous and quick, rather than thoughtfully articulated (Brown & Dittmar, 2005). In

particular, viewers’ response to the movie correlated negative with an intention to alter their

weight-related habits. This result is typical of what Petty, Priester and Briñol (2002) describe as a

momentary strong, but short-lived peripheral information-processing outcome. As Schrum (2002)

explains it further, merely glancing at beauty cues, especially shocking images of people can

provoke a strong effect along a peripheral message processing route. When viewing this particular

montage, participants in this group did indeed view a shockingly unusual scene punctuating this

montage’s ending. In a final movie montage scene, Ana was shown dancing with her co-workers

in their sewing shop to an upbeat Latin music rhythm; all were undressed in their underwear. One

heard this young protagonist mock her physical flaws and laugh at her full-figured appearance.

Her colleagues followed Ana’s lead by pointing at their own physical flaws and laughing about

their body imperfections. To underscore the beauty ideal she defended in this montage, Ana made

the following emphatic remark to her female colleagues; “Mujeres, ladies, this is who we are, real

women.” This movie ending and its unusual beauty appeal apparently did not resonate well with

viewers in this group. They seemingly manifested a desire to achieve a more ideal weight in

reaction to this particular movie ending (Table 1).

CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 19

Table 1
Viewers’Attention to Movie Denotations Correlating with their Body Esteem Changes: a Positive
Message Orientation
Independent Variable(s) Dependent Variable Correlational Results
Viewers’ reaction to the Viewers’ intention about *r(36) = -.405
movie reaching an ideal weight
Viewers’ intention to change Viewers’ intention to change *r(36) = .394
their figure their appearance
Note. p < .05, N = 36 *one-tailed

Viewing a negative message. In comparison, correlational results linking female

participants’ attention to a negative movie montage message orientation and to key aspects of their

body esteem produced a drop in viewers’ concerns about their figure, weight and appearance, three

key sub-variables (Mendelson, Mendelson & White, 2001). Viewers’ reaction to Señora Carmen’s

verbal abuse of her daughter’s appearance and to the thin ideal of beauty she evoked to undermine

Ana’s appearance appreciation correlated negatively with these participants’ concerns about their

weight and appearance (Table 4). Moreover, these participants manifested an intention to reach an

ideal figure that correlated positively with a desire to improve their appearance (Ajzen and

Fischbein, 2005). Interestingly, viewers’ desire to engage supporting characters directly in

conversation about the beauty conflict that played out onscreen indicated that these women were

attentive to actors who demonstrated feelings of social-inclusion for Ana. Among them, Ana’s

sister Estela, her grandfather and her boyfriend Jimmy were cast in positive roles. The attentive

parasocial interest that participants manifested towards the movie’s supporting characters,

produced a positive intention on the part of viewers to reach an ideal figure (Table 2). Yet, in

comparison, participants’ attention to Ana’s role in this movie montage negatively influenced the
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 20

perception they held about their weight and appearance. These outcomes appeared to occur along a

central information-processing route (Petty, Priester & Briñol, 2002).

Table 2
Female Viewers’ Attention to Movie Denotations Correlating with their Body Esteem Changes: a
Negative Message Orientation
Independent Variable(s) Dependent Variable Correlational Results
What would you tell Viewers’ perception of their *r(36) = -.358
Ana about this conflict? appearance
What would you tell Ana about Viewers’ perception of their *r(36) = -.367
this conflict? weight
Viewers’ perception of their Viewers’ intention to reach an *r(36) = -.335
figure ideal appearance
Would you talk with other Viewers’ intention to reach an *r(36) = .370
characters about the beauty ideal figure
conflict
Note. p < .05, N = 36 *one-tailed

Viewers’ Processing of Relational Movie Connotations Affecting Their Body Esteem

Viewing a positive message. Viewers in this group paid little attention to this movie

montage’s beauty appeal. Correlational results indicate that their thoughts appeared to drift away

from the movie’s narrative their recollections about past beauty-related discussions they elicited.

Results highlighted positive peer reinforcement of young women’s shared interests about dieting

and exercising to improve their figure. In particular, correlational results linked these viewers’

antecedent knowledge about beauty to discussions these women held in the company of their

female friends. Importantly, though, these correlational results indicated that viewers’

reminiscence about these friends did not produce any body esteem changes. Such unmotivated and
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 21

inattentive peripheral processing is described by Petty, Priester and Briñol (2002), as bearing little

long term effect.

In comparison, these women’s thoughts about their father’s beauty advice correlated

positively with an intention to improve their weight and figure (Table 3). This result indicated that

a father is an essential person in these young Cuban women’s lives who may help mitigate

negative interpersonal influences affecting his daughter’s appearance appreciation. Interestingly,

this result contrasted with the movie’s presentation of Ana’s onscreen father, Señor Garcia, who

was portrayed as a meek, non-opinionated man. In comparison, thinking about a brothers’ beauty

advice in real life, a character not shown in this movie, produced a negative result whereupon

viewers manifested an intention to lose weight.

Table 3
Viewers’ Attention to Movie Connotations Correlating with their Body Esteem Change: A Positive
Message Orientation
Independent Variable(s) Dependent Variable Correlational Results
A father’s beauty advice Viewers’ intentions about their *r(31) = .373
weight
A father’s beauty advice Viewers’ intentions about their *r(31) = -.343
figure
A brother’s beauty advice Viewers’ intentions to reach an *r (31) = -.360
ideal weight
A boyfriend’s beauty advice Usefulness of such advice *r (31) = .347
A girlfriend’s beauty advice Viewers’ romantic relationship *r (31) = .390
A girlfriend’s advice about Viewers’ eating preferences *r (31) = .389
exercising to reach an ideal
figure
A girlfriend’s advice about Viewers’ intentions about their *r (31) = .394
exercising to reach an ideal figure
figure
Note. *p < .05, N= 31/33
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 22

Viewing a negative message. Among participants who processed a negative movie

message orientation, correlational results linking changes in female viewers’ body esteem to an

evocation of beauty information these women shared with significant people in their lives

produced detrimental results. When asked to recall discussions they held with their girlfriends

about their appearance, participants’ responses correlated negatively with an intention to change

their behavior in order to reach an ideal weight and figure. The advice they shared with female

friends about their beauty and weight, in fact, contributed to undermine the perception they held

about their figure (Table 4). Correlational results indicate that the intensity to which participants

in this groups valued fitting in with their desired social group, one they evoked off screen,

appeared much stronger than in the contravening movie viewing group. Viewers in this group

processed this movie montage more attentively and thoughtfully along a central message

processing route. Interestingly, viewers in this groip appeared to experienced more difficulty

processing this beauty drama than their peers in a comparative study group (Table 4). They sought

out a stable relational space off screen from which they derived relational meaning about feminine

beauty that helped them make sense of the movie drama onscreen. They referred to a peer

approved thin ideal of feminine beauty to come to terms with the difficult propositions the movie

made to them to reconsider a thin beauty ideal on personal terms. As with female viewers in the

previous study group, participants’ attention shifted from the realm of movie denotations to that of

movie connotations.

Correlational results nevertheless provided a promising result; these participants valued a

mother’s beauty advice and judgement and that of a father and brother too. Thinking about their

mothers, in particular produced an appreciation of their weight. This positive result occurred in
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 23

spite the movie’s depiction of Señora Carmen as a cruel mother. It indicates that a Cuban mother

can play a strong mitigating role in the family that may help improve her daughter’s appearance

appreciation.

Table 4

Viewers’Attention to Movie Connotations Correlating with their Body Esteem Changes: A

Negative Message Orientation
Independent Variable(s) Dependent Variable Correlational Results
A mother’s beauty advice Viewers’ perception of their r(31) = .408
weight
A father’s beauty advice Viewers’ female parents – r(31) = .397
quality of their beauty
judgment
A brother’s beauty advice Viewers’ relationships with r(31) = .367
men
A girlfriend’s beauty advice Viewers’ romantic r(31) = .396
relationship
A girlfriend’s beauty advice Viewers’ intention to reach an r(33) = .609
ideal weight
A girlfriend’s weight advice Viewers’ intentions to achieve r(31) = -.370.
an ideal figure

Viewers’ perception of their A girlfriend’s advice about a r(33) = -.369

appearance viewer’s figure

Viewers’ perception of their Viewers’ perception of r(33) = -.335

weight beautiful women in the media
Note. p < .05, N = 31/33 *one-tailed

Viewers’ Processing of Media Information Regarding Beauty and Their Body Esteem

Viewing a positive message. Correlational results linking female viewers’ body esteem

changes to beauty-related information broadcast on television and in other media among women in
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 24

this group were entirely positive. Study group participants seemingly manifested a happy-go-lucky

inattentive processing of the movie message occurring along a central message-processing route

(Table 5). This conclusion is bolstered by descriptive data obtained about both study group’s

weekly that concur with Mander and Young’s (2017) observation that Cubans’ weekly television

consumption is very high, compared to that of viewers living in neighboring Latin American

countries (Table 7). Schrum (2002) explains that such rates of media exposure tend to reinforce

viewers’ preexisting beliefs and attitudes about the social relevance of a consumer value such as a

thin ideal.

Table 5

Correlational Results Highlighting Viewers’ Attention to Cultural Meaning Influencing their Body
Esteem: A Positive Message Orientation

Independent Variable(s) Dependent Variable Correlational Results

Usefulness of media beauty Viewers’ intentions about *r(34) = .342
information their weight
Attention to media beauty Usefulness of TV beauty r(34) = .315
models
Hours reading the press Viewers intentions about *r(34) = .357
their weight
Usefulness of press beauty Viewers perception of their *r(34) =.341
information weight
Viewers’ perception of their Viewers’ perception of their *r(34) = .335
appearance figure
Weekly hours spent reading Confidence in cinema’s *r(34) = .357
from the press beauty information
Weekly hours spent viewing Confidence in Internet *r(34) =.360
cinema descriptions of beauty
Weekly hours spent viewing Confidence in press *r(34) =.352
cinema descriptions of beauty
Note. p < .05, N = 34 *one-tailed
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 25

Viewing a negative message. In comparison, among viewers who were exposed to a

negative message orientation, correlational results highlighted a mistrust of Cuban media

information sources of information regarding feminine beauty. As well, processing this

particular movie montage elicited negative perceptions about their weight and figure, two key

body-esteem measures (Mendelson, Mendelson, & White, 2001). Women’s movie processing

experience in this group seemed intensely focused on the relational conflict they viewed; it proved

detrimental to their appearance appreciation (Table 6). Viewing scenes of intense movie drama,

Shrum (2002) explains, can readily activate women’s memory of a construct like that of a thin

ideal of feminine beauty, strengthening their well-articulated and established beliefs about it.

The categorical response viewers in this group to the movie’s central beauty appeals, the author

contents, may also be reinforced by their high rates of daily media program consumption

reinforcing the notion that only a positive view of thin feminine ideal of beauty is worth watching.

This group of viewers resisted any attempt on the part of the movie at influencing these

core beliefs. The author describes this type of biased processing as evidence that media effects can

be powerful when information is processed centrally. It manifested itself in viewers’ utter

rejection of the realistic ideal of beauty the movie proposed to them, as well of scenes negatively

associating a thin ideal with the abusive behavior Señora Carmen demonstrated in the presence of

her daughter Ana (Table 6). Viewers’ pro-thin attitudes about feminine beauty in both study

groups is underscored as well by descriptive describing their choices of female models

representative of a feminine ideal beauty in Cuba. Rather than consider Cuban women as role

models from examples they recalled in various social, cultural, academic or professional groups,
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 26

they selected popular international singers and actresses portrayed on television, in movies and

music videos as icons of beauty, Furthermore, their attention bore on these women’s physical

characteristics of attractiveness more than any other personal qualities.

Table 6

Correlational Results Highlighting Viewers’ Attention to Cultural Meaning Influencing their Body
Esteem: A Negative Message Orientation
Independent Variable(s) Dependent Variable Correlational Results
Usefulness of press beauty information Viewers’ perception of *r(31) = -.372
their figure
Beauty advice Viewers’ perception of *r(34) = -.391
in the press their figure
Beauty advice Viewers’ perception of *r(31) = -.343
in the press their figure

Beauty usefulness Viewers’ perception of r(31) = -.409

in the press their appearance
Confidence in beauty information in the press Viewers’ perception of r(31) = -.344
their appearance
Hours of press reading Viewers’ perception of *r(31) = -.347
their appearance

Note. p < .05, N = 31/34 *one-tailed

Interestingly as well, further descriptive data indicated that viewers’ reliance of non-

conventional sources of media channels to seek out information about feminine beauty was

relatively high. In a country where the state media exercise strict control over consumer

information and program content by banning most types of advertising, Burnett (2013) explains,

cable, satellite, internet connections and programs exchanged as digital files are rapidly changing

the media landscape in Cuba (Table 8).

CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 27

Table 7
Results Highlighting Female Participants’ weekly TV Consumption of Media (Beauty) Information
Weekly Total Confidence in TV beauty % Usefulness %
Television Weekly information of TV
Consumption Consumptio beauty
per Hours n information
per Hours
01 to 24 hrs. 33.3 High 27.8 High 30.6
24 to 48 hrs. 33.3 Medium 33.3 Medium 36.
48 to 72 hrs. 22.2 Low 30.0 27.8
72 to 96 hrs. 8.3 Other 8.9 Other 5.6
96 to 120 hrs 2.9
144 to 168 hrs 0

Table 8
Descriptive Results Highlighting Viewers’ Feminine Attention to Beauty Ideals, their Origins and
Characteristics

Sources of Female Viewing Origins of Feminine % Focus of Female %

Beauty Ideal hours Ideal Beauty
per week
TV 38.9 Movie actresses 29.2 Hair 8.3
Internet 8.3 Pop singer 6.3 Facial Features 2.8
Movie 25.06 Fashion model 12.5 Clothing 14.1
Press / magazines 5.6 Various 4.2 Appearance 44.4
Non-conventional 22.14 Movie actresses 47.8 Various 30.4
media

Study Limitations and Future Research

Limitations appear in this exploratory study that call on researchers to replicate its effects

with larger groups of female participants in order to increase correlational results’ significance

levels. Investigators should replicate this study by testing its instruments using categories of

answers derived from the thematic study they conducted of participants’ answers in this

exploratory study. Moreover, investigators should seek to obtain more pre-test and posttest
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 28

comparative results about from dependent and independent variables that could help triangulate

data about which to infer conclusively about study results. These instruments need to be test-

piloted and validated to ensure that an evaluation of proposed measurements is sound.

Furthermore, this investigation calls for replicating this investigation in different communities in

Cuba and in Latin America to ensure that different investigators’ interpretations of the phenomena

under study and its effects concur.

Future research based on this exploratory study should investigate young women’s need for

social belonging and fitting in with their friends, given their vulnerability to peer influence and to a

thin ideal of feminine they define, share, and reinforced among one another. In particular, it

should investigate young female viewers’ anxiety about social-rejection regarding their appearance

in social groups. Researchers should examine viewers’ difficulty coming to terms with the

contravening beauty propositions advanced in this movie in scenes of conflict and under conditions

of high drama. In this regard, they should consider the important role that parents may play in

mitigating negative media effects to improve a daughters’ body esteem.

Conclusion

At a transitional point in these viewers’ lives between home, college and adulthood, female

participants in both study groups did not respond well to scenes edited from the Real Women Have

Curves movie. Excerpts of this movie did not produce a beneficial, deep-set personal change of

attitude about a thin feminine look affecting young Latina women, some of whom in these two

study groups share Ana’s full-figure. Neither movie montage under study effectively helped raise
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 29

women viewers’ awareness of body esteem as a social and a personal problem. Nor did this movie

appear to advance social change in the Latin American cinema tradition by (Mohammed, 2010).

Overall correlational results of viewers’ processing of movie denotations and connotations

in a positive movie version designed to exert low dramatic impact on female viewers movie

processing experience indicate that this movie format was not persuasive enough to sway viewers’

established thoughts, attitudes and knowledge about feminine beauty. Nevertheless, viewers’

inattentive processing of a positive movie montage produced the most powerfully negative, albeit

short-termed influence undermining viewers’ weight appreciation, a key concern.

Similarly, overall correlational results obtained about viewers’ processing of movie

denotations and connotations in a negative movie message orientation indicate that these young

women experienced great difficulty coming to terms with movie characters’ actions in this story

under attentive viewing conditions. Processing this movie version following an attentive, central

information-processing route produced more frequent, consistently negative effects on viewers

body esteem sub-categories.

Viewers’ thoughtful elaborations about the movie underscored participants’ profound need

for social-inclusion and validation among real-world female friends regarding a trendy thin look

that they share and reinforce. Rather than attempt to make sense of contravening beauty

propositions, viewers evoked relational meaning about feminine beauty in a more peaceful,

optimistic setting they recalled off-screen in the company of people they appreciated much more

than the movie characters the viewed onscreen.

CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 30

Such a shift in viewers’ attention to relational meaning informing their perception of the movie

narrative exemplifies Metz’s (1964) characterization of cinematic expression as freely articulated.

Results of college-age viewers’ movie processing under two message orientations reveal

that a thin consumer beauty ideal exist in the community of Cienfuegos in a form that Baudrillard

(1968) calls a consumer fact that has taken root as an entrenched cultural artefact. Its evocation by

participants in both movie processing studies strongly biased their responses to both beauty-related

messages. Its presence in viewers’ thoughts as they processed a movie montage contributed to

affect their body esteem detrimentally under both message processing conditions (Webb &

Zimmer-Gembek, 2013).

No longer is the Cuban Criolita beauty ideal present in the community of Cienfuegos that

once captivated people’s imagination on Cuban television programs, in movies, posters and in

novels (Kneese, 2005). Whereas Cuba once exported a mulata’s or mixed race woman’s alluring

images adorning consumer products like rum and tobacco to the world, today Cuba imports images

of thin, tall, European-looking women featured on music videos, movies, and other media

programs.

This exploratory study’s findings challenge researchers to consider women’s body esteem

responses to mass media fare denoting or evoking female beauty ideals as the outcome of a

meaningful, engaging and dynamic message-processing experience. Importantly, its results should

caution Cuban medical and consumer authorities about the possibility that an epidemic in women’s

poor body esteem may arise in the community of Cienfuegos. Such a body disturbance problem

may occur on a level not unlike one described by Esquivel and Gonzalez (2010) with respect to
CUBAN WOMEN’S MOVIE PROCESSING AND BODY ESTEEM 31

young Cuban’s increasing struggles with obesity. It calls for reinforcing educational programs and

health intervention programs focusing on gender communication that take into account

Cienfuego’s changing consumer landscape in this community. These initiatives must help young

Cuban women not only gain critical skills to cope with mass media and interpersonal

reinforcement of a thin ideal of beauty but learn to become comfortable assessing beauty on their

own terms rather engage in peer-reinforced, self-evaluative assessment of their appearance.

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Acknowledgment

Researchers wish to thank academics, research assistants, participants, and university

administrators at the Universidad de Cienfuegos in Cienfuegos, Cuba for their invaluable

contributions to this study. They are grateful as well to communication students at Universidad

Anahuac, Cancun, for the work they accomplished dubbing scenes taken from the Real Women

Have Curves movie (2002) into Spanish and who edited them into two movie montages for this

investigation. As well, they wish to thanks academics and female students at Universidad

Anahuac Cancun, Mexico and Universidad Del Sur, Cancun, Mexico for test-piloting research

questionnaires.