Hypothetical Abstract- "The Neon Demon"

Hypothesis/Thesis Statement
Nicolas Winding Refn's film is a social commentary on how modern society overly relies on its standards of beauty and forces those who do not fit into it to drastically change themselves to keep up, thus creating a cruel cycle of chasing beauty yet never being able to catch up or end up destroying themselves in the process.

Scope
An article by the Mic. Network explores "The Disturbing Effect Our Beauty Standards Have On Women Across The World." This article states that the number of women suffering from anorexia in India has increased between 5 and 10 times in younger women in the last 10 years, along with the rise of plastic surgery in Lebanon to keep up with beauty standards and even society itself as many jobs state that women "must be beautiful". "If tomorrow women all over the world looked in the mirror and if they liked what they saw reflected back at them, then we would have to reshape capitalism as we know it.

"The Neon Demon" explores this by representing the modeling industry as a dog eat dog world (quite literally) where everyone claws for beauty, yet our protagonist naturally possesses these standards of beauty and as a result, rises through the industry at a rapid rate, leaving the others behind. She eventually lets this gets to her head, which leads to her downfall.
"I am dangerous. I know what I look like,what's wrong with that anyway? Women would kill to look like this. They carve and stuff and inject themselves. They starve to death, hoping, praying that one day they'll look like a second-rate version of me."

Methodology
Ideology: Reoccurring image of a triangle, could represent the Illuminati, or the industry itself. Criticizes western ideology for its beauty standards and use of media to manipulate.
Realism and Formalism: Some scenes of the film contain slow, long takes more reminiscent of a realist film, which helps makes the film's issues and commentaries more grounded in our reality, but is then thrown out of the window by the director's stylistic choices and dream sequences similar to a formalist film.

Chapter Structure
Chapter 1: Negative effects modern standards of beauty have on women. (rise in eating disorders and plastic surgery)
Chapter 2: Capitalism and its manipulations of these standards. (Models are used to sell products, which then make younger women in society want to buy the products in order to conform to the standards advertised to them.)

Key Readings
https://mic.com/articles/111228/how-western-beauty-ideals-are-hurting-women-across-the-globe#.Yebx0cvAx