Ads

         We all know that sex sells. It’s everywhere from the food we eat, to the movies we watch, to even shows for kids (innuendo). It’s hard to escape it. In Hunger as Ideology (HAI) by Susan Bordo, it says that woman can ONLY eat if it’s related to sex, “When women are positively depicted as sensuously voracious about food (almost never in commercials, and only very rarely in movies and novels), their hunger for food is employed solely as a metaphor for their sexual appetite” (HAI, 110) It’s bad enough that woman are viewed as sex objects, now they can because its related to sex, there’s no escape from it. If I were to construct or find an alternative to mainstream I would use real woman without Photoshop or overly sexualized ads and show the world who woman really are. This would be so hard to achieve (change is always so hard to accept) I will use tools of the internet, blogs, social media, and word or mouth.

The only way women can eat

       According to this quote, “They are more dependent than men are on the cultural models on offer, and more likely to be imprinted by them” (Culture, 58), woman will become more dependable and influenced by mainstream media then men. As these dependencies grow, so will the insecurities of woman. Woman will want to start looking more like the false images in the ads. My purpose is to stray away from these images and get more comfortable with their own skin.

People actually believe this

        These insecurities are exploited by businesses, “Advertisers are aware of their roles and do not hesitate to take advantage of the insecurities and anxieties of young people, usually in the guise of offering solutions” (The more you subtract, the more you add, 129).  The advertisers are more aware of our own insecurities then we are and they aren’t scared to profit of it. Once women and in this case young people, start to realize that their own insecurities are being sold to them by fictional solutions, then the progression can move in a timely manner.  

       What these ads do is feed into the insecurities and make us believe that our imperfections are our own wrong doings. It's almost our fault that we were born the way we look. These ads give us a false sense of hope that we can indeed change for our looks for the better. Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing As: Sexism in Advertising, shows many examples of ads against mainstream ads, even going as far as paying full rate as a mainstream ad but it wasn’t enough, “The ads were rejected by all of the mainstream billboard companies in the area” (50). So the mainstream media tried there hardest they still managed to land in the Los Angeles Times.

She's not even skinny enough to be in the ad.

        I am a person that wants to believe that these ads will change, but in HAI it states, “But ‘progress’ is not an adequate description of the cultural status of the counter-examples they bring me. Rather, they almost always display a complicated and bewitching tangle of new possibilities and old patterns of representation” (131). I use this quote because the blog is mainly about going against mainstream ads, but we see how mainstream goes against itself in a way that people don’t realize its just there strategy to reinvent the old views from different perspectives. Again, these views may be different to the viewer, but it still feeds to the insecurities. Using the internet Is the best way to go against mainstream, but if mainstream already goes against itself on purpose it’s hard to get the word out.

Works Cited

Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University of California, 1993. Print.

Cortese, Anthony J. "Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads: Sexism in Advertising." N.p., n.d. Web.

Kilbourne, Jean. ""The More You Subtract, the More You Add": Cutting Girls down to Size." DeepDyve. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2012. <http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/psycbooks-reg/the-more-you-subtract-the-more-you-add-cutting-girls-down-to-size-xmQ3OQwrMW>.

Wolf, Naomi. "The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women [Paperback]." The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women: Naomi Wolf: 9780060512187: Amazon.com: Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2012. <http://www.amazon.com/The-Beauty-Myth-Images-Against/dp/0060512180>.

Gender and Advertising

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Gender and Advertising

Our world is the world of advertising. We are bombarded with ads driving around our cities and towns, reading newspapers or magazines, visiting websites and turning on television. The constant exposure for its contents has a great influence on our everyday life, on our views, ideas, values, perception of reality and us. Nowadays advertising is a huge industry worth billions in every available currency.

Jean Kilbourne in her article „Beauty and the Beast of Advertising” says: „Advertising is the foundation and economic lifeblood of the mass media. The primary purpose of the mass media is to deliver an audience to advertisers”.(1)

Women perform in the majority of advertisements. Most of the ads propagate stereotypical image of women and men in the society.

Depending of the product advertised there are different kinds of stereotypes used, as far as women are concerned: the whole or dismembered feminine body, a domestic woman, woman as a mythical individual.

The whole feminine body is always young and attractive, usually partly undressed. It appears in ads addressed to men as an element taking their attention or as a symbol of the effectiveness of the product.

In such advertisements woman performs as a symbol of sex. Jean Kilbourne writes: „The sex object is a mannequin, a shell. Conventional beauty is her only attribute.”(1)

The stereotypical man' s outlook is usually as conventional as woman's. Cortese in his article „ Constructed bodies...” emphasizes: „The ideal man in ads is young, handsome, clean-cut, perfect and sexually alluring Now the muscular guy dominates the runaways and magazine pages”.

The very important issue to discuss is the mutual relationship between these two- a man and a woman. The picture above is a perfect example. Cortese notices: ‘ masculinity is defined in opposition to feminity. In short, masculine images are dominant, intimidating, and violent, while feminine images are subordinate, receptive and passive”(2). This is one of the ways the advertising industry contributes to promoting extremal behavior – violence. „Violence as a genetically programmed male behavior, the use of military and sports symbolism to enhance the masculine appeal and identification of products... In short, in advertising violence becomes fashionable and urbane”.(2)

One of the techniques used in cosmetics' advertising is separating parts of feminine body. Here attributes are long hair (shampoo ads), big eyes with long lashes (eye cosmetics), sensual lips (lipstick), smooth skin (soaps and lotions) etc. 

House cleaning products demand an image of a domestic woman. Jean Kilmore articles this accurately: „The housewife, pathologically obsessed by cleanliness and lemon-fresh scents, debates cleaning products and worries about her husband's ring around the collar”.(1). She is not attractive in general but she is useful socially. She owns a family she has to take care of. This is her lifetime mission of making her husband and children happy. The housewife's appearance is ordinary; she looks modest and is not very intellectual developed, although thrifty and provident. Her world is limited to neighborhood.

The mythical individual is the synonym of everything we want to be or to have. These are unreachable beauties or women famous, rich or admired. These personify the dreams of the viewer.

To overcome these long-lasting advertisement stereotypes is a very challenging task.

One of the methods to apply is simply changing the types of ads printed in feminine magazines or broading the range of products they promote. Gloria Steinem, the founder and editor of “Ms.” magazine reveals in her text „Sex, Lies, and Advertising” the difficult pattern of making this real: „We decided to proceed in two stages. First, we would

convince makers of “people products” used by both men and women but advertised mostly to men-cars, credit cards, insurance, sound equipment, financial services ad the like-that their ads should be placed in a women’s magazine. Since they were accustomed to the division between editorial and advertising in news and general interest magazines, this would allow our editorial content to be free and diverse. Second, we would add the best ads for whatever traditional “women’s products” (clothes, shampoo, fragrance, food, and so on) that surveys showed "Ms." readers used. But we would ask them to come in without the usual quid pro quo of “complementary copy”.(3). One should notice this was a long-lasting war full of failures, tricks and artful ideas to persuade the rich and powerful advertisement industry to modify their views.

Thank to the work of "Ms." journalists we can watch more often promotions as Dove brand made in 2004. The campaign encouraged people to share their opinions on the issue of the definition of beauty. Women advertising the products were finally as real as we are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=lnOSZX4tpOA

1. Jean Kilbourne, „Beauty and the Beast of Advertising”

2. Anthony J. Cortese, PROVOCATEUR, Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising, chapter „Constructed bodies, deconstructing ads: Sexism in advertising”

3. Gloria Steinem's "Sex, Lies, and Advertising"