Ted Talk Analysis: Cameron Russel

     In October of 2012, Cameron Russel delivered a speech titled, "Looks Aren't Everything. Believe Me, I'm A Model.". She presented this speech to a local audience at an independent TED event called TedxMidAtlantic. The purpose of Cameron's speech was to inform the audience of how superficial the world of modeling is. As well as to educate people on how deceiving a person's looks can be when determining a person's character. The vast majority of the audience Cameron is presenting to presumably are not models, or do no work in the modeling industry. Because of this, the audience expects Cameron to deliver a speech shedding some light on the darker side of modeling. Along with this they expect Cameron to speak on the negative effects modeling has caused with body image based on the title of her speech.
     To begin her speech, Cameron stands on stage wearing a very tight a short dark colored dress with extremely high heels (shown below).

She uses herself as an effective visual aid to demonstrate her point of how image is powerful, but also superficial. To do this, she changes on stage into a long skirt, cardigan sweater, and flat shoes. Before changing she acknowledges that she is aware that the audience is judging her based on her tight fitting dress and high heeled shoes. Then, after she changes into "appropriate" clothing, she addresses how the content of her speech would not have been skewed by her choice of clothes. But by changing her clothes, she changed the audiences' preconceived notion of the quality of her speech. 

     Throughout her speech, Cameron seemed a bit nervous speaking to a crowd of people, although it did not detract the effectiveness of her speech. She nervously laughed at points where the audience chuckled, and she said "um" quite a bit. Practicing her speech more often before hand could have eliminated some of the "um's" and taken some of her nervousness away. One other criticism I have for Cameron was that some parts of her speech did not flow well. At one point she went directly from talking about the percentages of young minority males in New York that were stopped by police to how much her photos were photoshopped. A better way to this would be to more thoroughly explain how police stopping  a young men in New York based on their outward appearance does not represent their character relates to the amount of photoshop photographers use on photos are not an accurate depiction of what the model really looks like. 

     Cameron's strongest aspects of her speech were her visual aids. Along with using herself as a visual aid in the beginning of her speech, she used them throughout to demonstrate how pictures of models are not accurate depictions of who they are. She used multiple side-by-sides to show how the pictures in the magazines are more "constructions" rather than real photographs. By doing this, she effectively communicates to the audience not to envy girls in the magazines because the pictures are of "construction" made by a boat load of editing. The images she chose to use to support her claims are shown below. The first one is of her at the same age, except on the right she is heavily edited. The second on she uses is the bottom picture. This side-by-side is of her varying in age only by two months. This image was very effective in communicating to audience how "fake" modeling really is. 

Overall, Cameron's speech effectively communicated the superficiality of modeling and how deceiving the looks of something or someone can be. She did demonstrate some nervous tendencies that could be easily fixed by more practice. There was a slight disrupt in the general organization of her speech, but it not detract from the content. By the end of her speech, Cameron's message was effectively communicated to the audience.