Getting Back to Basics

Ever since the very humble beginnings of history, the female bodice has been a form that has been revered as one of the most pleasurable of sights for a multitude of reasons; for her softness, her curvature, her length...it's attractiveness appealing not only in aesthetics, but stimulating to the sexual appetite as well. There is a special beauty about a woman's form in it's most natural state that can be easily recognized by most. However, when that same untouched body lengthily goes through the process of being tucked, pulled, plucked, stretched and swelled into an unrecognizable, unattainable and, most importantly, artificial version of what it used to be and then labeled the cultural 'ideal', in turn, how many young minds are devastatingly warped everyday into trying to achieve that impossible altitude of aesthetics? How many individual markers of beauty are thus sapped away from their very reflections they see in the mirror, their self esteems dwindling to almost nothing as a response? Just how many?

With the magic of airbrush and photoshop, this beautiful woman isn't even recognizable anymore.

When girls and women compare themselves to this stylistically molded airbrushed stencil of the female form, it's no wonder that there is a billion dollar business today in cosmetics and plastic surgery in order to achieve this impossible ideal. As touched upon in previous postings, the female sex has been devalued by our media, with it's use in the gender binary coming up to nothing more than an aesthetic for men to fawn upon, her beauty being very well her only weapon in life and her only source of worth; born to be observed, never to act. (insert quote here) With this much devaluation constantly being paraded in front of the eyes of growing children, girls make an unnatural strive for strength and acceptance in how they are observed by the opposite sex (something that is not often practiced by their male counterparts interestingly enough), finding no way else to achieve that same sense of self worth in other parts of life. It's a depressing reality, and whether we are conscious of it or not, a system we often succumb to begrudgingly, where we are forced to validate our very existence by how sexually appealing men find us.

An extreme parody of how some men view women in this day and age; not caring at all for a woman's wit or personality, but only the chance of a night's sexual conquest. As disgusting as it might seem, this is unfortunately true for a lot of men and is a result of the systematic exploitation that women face everyday. 

 In advertising, natural human attributes are warped into ugliness with the use of airbrushing techniques and digital alteration, and the girls and women who view these images are none the wiser that no human on this earth can achieve that grade of flawlessness normally.

Even Britney Spears can't escape it...

Skinny or 'waifish' forms are the set standard, and yet even some of the more thin models are still altered artificially to make them appear even thinner. According to Anthony Cortese, the failure to achieve this impossible ideal creates a natural living nightmare for so many young girls who consider these poreless long-legged women in magazine spreads “the only valid form of female identity.” Their sense of self is compromised every time an ad rolls about showing a mindless female body, artificially altered in appearance and placed in overtly submissive, sexual and even violent positions. In advertisements, women are just as thoughtless as the products they push and are only shown to entice the male appetite. They are stripped away of all personal attributes and devoid of human thought so that they can be objectified into the seductive sensual form that has long since been so popularized today.

“The sex object is a mannequin, a shell. Conventional beauty is her only attribute. She has no lines or wrinkles (which would indicate she had the bad taste and poor judgment to grow older), no scars or blemishes—indeed, she has no pores. She is thin, generally tall and long-legged, and, above all, she is young.” – Jean Kilboune, Beauty and the Beast of Advertising

So what can be done to change such a dangerous system that not only exploits young bodies for profit, but ends up warping our ideas on what it truly means to be female? It would be as simple as taking real life photographs of women in our streets to show how skewed the representation of the female sex is in media and in the minds of men. Alas, we have wrinkles, pores and blemishes. Our hair and clothes are disheveled at times. Our thighs touch and our waists thick. We are not seen rolling around on the street floor covered in diamonds and fur, giving every male that passes by a suggestive stare. We are real people, with emotions and aspirations that go beyond just selling you a product with our bodies. We have just as much drive as our male counterparts to be successful human beings in areas that don't necessarily pertain to our beauty and it is ridiculous that our sexual attractiveness is still what primarily deciphers our strength as living breathing human beings in this day and age. How about the prize of our intellect, our physical strength, our charisma? A woman can still be as attractive in full business attire without having to opt for the slinky bikini to accentuate her breasts and curved behind.

What about the excessive amounts of photoshop and airbrushing techniques? Maybe if people knew that their favorite celebrities had dark under eye circles, finely wrinkled foreheads, cellulite, bruised skin...all things that are considered normal happenings, maybe we wouldn't feel so low about ourselves just for being human. There is a sense of courageousness and strength in showing attributes people are typically insecure about in a two page spread in Vogue, though, seeing it as nothing more than a mundane occurrence that happens to just about everyone, there would no doubt be less shame surrounding it. Yes, the lack of photoshop might bring these star studded talents and beautiful models crashing back down to earth from that unearthly unflawed figure of them we see on our television screens, but so what? Maybe if we came to realize those glossed over photos are nothing more than a hyperactive fantasy, we wouldn't have so many hang ups about our bodies bare and unfiltered and maybe only then can we can come back to what it truly feels to be a natural beauty, flaws and all. 

Sources: 

Jean Kilboune, Beauty and the Beast of Advertising

Anthony Cortese, Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads: Sexism in Advertising
Joe Lajoie, Show Me Your Genitals, Youtube

Let's hit them where it hurts them.. THEIR WALLET.

The media is everywhere, surrounding us and enclosing us to listen, to feel anxious and fall under consumerism. And what TV emphasizes the most is that the party girls, the beautiful girls, they are the ones becoming famous. They are the ones that get the most attention and boys, therefore why wouldn’t little girls want to be like them?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JCaDHqzKi8

This song is so catchy and yet when you listen to the lyrics it is disgusting, “But I don’t wanna study, I just wanna party”, “look at me mum, I’m dressing like a... bitch”.  It is absolutely fine to want to party once in a while and have fun, but to dress like a “bitch”? To not want to study? This is the example that’s being given to younger girls everywhere. It is either “beauty-without-intelligence or intelligence-without-beauty” (Wolf, pg 59). Yet, the “beauty-without-intelligence” girl: Kim Kardashian is being listened to and watched 10x more than the “intelligence-without-beauty” girl: Hilary Clinton.

 “As Margaret Mead once said, today our children are not brought up by parents, they are brought up by the mass media.” (Kilbourne, pg129). It has always seems like the prime target for advertisement are teenagers, but as years have gone by, more kids are being surrounded by media. Now, it feels like children are being influenced more at even younger ages. And therefore, they are being taught by it rather than by their parents, usually because their parents are too busy working to try to buy their children all the stuff they “want.” More like stuff that the media tells them to want.

 The “quest for a body as thin as the models becomes a prison for many women and girls” (Killbourne, pg138). Not just their thinness, their flawless skin, their perfect smiles, and luscious hair.  And this is being brought up at even younger and younger ages. Think of Toddlers and Tiaras. This show represents the ways media has taken over these poor little girls’ lives. The worst part is, that both, the parents and the media are in an agreement to sexualize and objectify the little girls into sexy little babies. Tom Hanks does a parody of the show with his daughter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPLWKBWkn3s

           

The parody is funny to us because we know it’s true. The obsessed parent that wants a dream of their own implied on their children. How they exaggerate their hair with wigs, get fake teeth, huge poofy dresses, learn sexy dances, and worst of all say vulgar things like, “talk dirty to me”. Though, don’t give me wrong, it’s a great song. Out of all the lines in the song, that’s the last one a little girl should be saying. But the sexier they are, the more they seem to win prices. What can be further done with this video is actually become proactive. Actually have moments of criticism and maybe create a movement to regulate the pageants more. Perhaps create a proposal on what can be done to change the attitudes that are so embedded in it. The only problem with all of this is money. The government and businesses want money, if regulating the show results into a decrease in their wallets, they won’t listen. Therefore we need the consumers to boycott, that way they will change whatever is more appealing to us because they essentially just want our money.

            Naomi Wolf points out that the “Beauty myth today serves government and the economy,” hence why it’s so hard to stop the mass production of advertisement that emphasizes on the idealized man and woman. "Ads work in part by generating dissatisfaction and by offering images of transformation, of a 'new you'"(Kellner 130), i.e. they point out your insecurities, which builds up your anxiety and with that, they give you a quick fix to all your problems through materialism. Meanwhile, they should be doing it by fixing it internally, to improve self-confidence.

Steinem tries to diverge from the mainstream and create an alternative media. She, with others started a magazine called Ms. to “provide a forum where women and advertisers could talk to each other and improve advertising itself” (Steinem, pg 112). Hearing about it first seemed an excellent way to begin to change other magazines that are so shallow. It even inspired me to, perhaps one day, become the owner of a magazine that does just that. But later, Steinem mentions the struggles of keeping the magazine going. How hard it is to get other companies to indulge in advertisement that lacks the objectification of the female body. Some companies even insulted the readers of the magazine and claimed those were not his consumers, therefore why would he try to sell to them. The only way to actually commence this change is educate more people on these obvious tactics constantly used in media. The younger they’re educated, the better. That way, we can then strive to emphasize to the media that this is not what we want, and they will OBVIOUSLY change it because all they want to do is MAKE MONEY.

Kilbourne, Jean. “Beauty and the Beast of Advertising." Gender, Race and Class in Media.  Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003.

Steinem, Gloria. “Sex, Lies and Advertising.” Gender, Race and Class in Media.  Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003. 

Kellner, Douglas. “Reading Images Critically Toward a Postmodern Pedagogy.” Gender, Race and Class in Media. Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003.

Wolf, Naomi. “Culture”. The Beauty Myth How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. United States Of America, 2002. 58-85. Print.

The Impact of Ads

Every single day, people are bombarded with advertisements about a product or service. An advertisement's main purpose is to persuade the consumer that they need said product or service. In addition, advertisements exist to present the ideal to people. Advertisements hold tremendous power over people even if the consumers themselves don't realize it yet.
Many of the ads that are made for women usually target their bodies and self-esteem. In their book titled Media and Body Image: If Looks Could Kill, Maggie Wykes and Barrie Gunter look at the media's impact on body image namely about women. According to them "Women feature in culture more often than not because of how they look and the preferred look is young, slender, sexual, and white." (Wykes and Gunter, p. 206) This is most apparent in today's advertisements. Much of the time that a woman is featured in an advertisement it is for one of two reasons. Either it is a product aimed towards the male audience and the woman ends up being sexualized or a woman is made fun of and told to change her appearance in order to attract attention.

 For example, in the picture posted above, a woman is objectifed in order to promote a camera. In addition, the advertisement demeans the woman by inferring that the woman would look better with bigger breasts. There are many ways that Nikon could have advertised the camera but they instead choose to focus on shock value and a woman's body.
With body image being a big issue among women, advertisements also aim to appeal to their want to improve their bodies. However, this also adds to the notions that all men want is a thin attractive woman instead of one with a few extra pounds. Susan Bordo wrote an article titled "Hunger as Ideology" and she address women's battles with weight and appearance. She writes,

"But in the nineties, features on diets, exercise and body-image problems have grown increasingly prominent in magazines aimed at African American readers, reflecting the cultural reality that for most women today --whatever their racial or ethnic identity, and increasingly across class and sexual-orientation differences as well--free and easy relations with food are at best a relic of the past" (Bordo, p.103)

What she is saying here is that women can no longer enjoy food without being judged. Much of the judgement is based on a woman's weight. For example, if a plus sized woman decides to eat some McDonald's, people may think she is obese. On the other hand, if a thin woman decides to only eat a salad or a sandwich, people may assume that she needs to eat more to be deemed normal. As a result, women may sacrifice a sense of happiness with food in order to be accepted.

In recent years, companies have actually tried to highlight the typical man and woman in their advertisements. For example, Dove launched a campaign for their products using plus sized models in an effort to appeal more to general consumers. In addition, they showed that any woman can be seen as beautiful. My aim for a new ad campaign is inspired by Dove and also addresses the issue of men being impacted by advertisements in a negative way.

The video posted above is an example of what I like in a new ad campaign for men and women. In the video, typical men show that they come in all shapes and sizes. In addition, it also shows how shallow the advertising companies appear when they cast an attractive model in their ads.  My aim is not to hate on the models but to show them and the general consumer that advertisements are all about the ideal and not true to the reality of society. Women could do a similar thing and maybe pose in a store like Forever 21 or Victoria's Secret.  Once again my ad campaign's goal would be to highlight real people and show that beauty can reside in anyone.What may not seem beautiful to some will be seen as beautiful by others. In addition, it will show that people will not have to change much in order to be noticed.

Works Cited:

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

Wykes, Maggie, and Barrie Gunter. The Media and Body Image: If Looks Could Kill. London: SAGE, 2005. Print.

*The picture can be found at the following link: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8LJWHy-iJmTn-wMS2DjcSnJtjn16jPeMkStM4thlmwkbNZ4NkJdae00i06CcJPhrSE-NtjM6pY8tM1zOOzCo5QCCwbcfDHzEVX30SzTbFJQD0zMMxqUwc61JLjDj5Lzw1rLZl_t_Acxpc/s400/objectification1.jpg

*Link to the video:  http://youtu.be/jdeBp8J0rqs

A New Normal

The hardest part about creating an alternative advertising culture is not in identifying a problem, or getting people to realize that there is a problem; or even a proposal for a better alternative/solution to the problems advertisers face. Even people who aren't media literate can and do recognize that commercials are dumb and pandering, and they know that they don't like it. Women and other under-represented minority groups can clearly see that there isn't enough of them in the media, and express their feelings of under and misrepresentation. And everyone can agree that diversifying who makes the ads and who we see in the media; showing that a wider variety of people do exist is the solution.
 In a few words, the simplest way to change advertising is to stop using what are clearly oppressive symbols in advertising, and replace them with more diversity.
And it's not even that the advertisers themselves are an opposing force to any changes for the better that could possibly be made; because as part of the business, they have to give people what they want. As things are now, people don't want to be pandered to or marginalized; and they themselves can identify what they would liked changed.

Which leaves the question of why things haven't changed, what's gotten in the way. And it's not so much a problem with advertising as it is with media in general; but in particular to advertising, how we are exposed to ads.

Advertisements are just one part of the media that influence our idea of normal. Not what we know normal is; but how we perceive what is normal in the media. And the two are extremely dissonant. For example: we all know what morning looks and feels like. We wake up at 7am and it's still mostly dark out. There's a stillness and a grogginess to the morning that we're all used to by now. However, mornings in the media look like this:

And this is clearly not morning; this is mid-day lighting. That's just one example, but it's things like that; small queues and symbols that define what we think of as normal in the media. And it's those small things, those almost subconscious queues that are the biggest problem.

Slowly taking this closer to the topic; in commercials, pizza is always delivered to a house. This has a lot to do with a house having windows and a door that leads directly to the outside. Pizza delivered to the front of the house, with the delivery man outside handing the pizza to the waiting family indoors is the media normal. And as of now, we have made enough progress where the same delivery could be made to a black family as well as a white one. However, you won't see pizza delivered to an apartment. Even though we're all aware plenty of people live in apartments, and those people order pizza; we won't see that experience replicated on a commercial.

Getting even closer to the point; there aren't many unattractive people on television. This mostly applies to woman, but has less to do with who is attractive but rather who we listen to. Everyone will listen to an attractive person. Everyone will listen to an attractive woman, especially. Even though we know that plenty of non-attractive people are worth listening to; its not normal to see someone unattractive in an ad, and want to listen to them. The biggest gender discrepancy here has to do with
the types (plural) of men people will listen to compared to the type (single) of woman people will listen do; but this is not an issue that has to do with commercials alone. But, we will listen to this guy:

and this guy:

and this woman:

but not so much him:

President of the People's Republic of China

or her: Executive Editor of the New York Times

And as I said, I don't believe this is so much a problem with people not wanting to listen to unattractive people as it is with this definition of normal we see in the media, combined with how we interact with advertising. Basically, because there is so much advertising, and each advertisement we see only has a maximum of 30 seconds to leave an impression on us, and we will see the same advertisement dozens of times; advertisers have to rely on this media normal in order to get a message across at all without the message taking too long to process and too reliant on the one impression where seeing it multiple times would ruin the ad. Because of this style of interaction with the ad, construction has to be quick and transparent for the message to get across; and conforming to the normal makes that efficient. If we don't see an attractive person in a house than we won't pay attention to what they are trying to sell. We rely on these similar and quick queues to know that something is important and we should pay attention. Furthermore, any change from the normal distracts from the message of the ad, which means that the ad could not effectively do it's job in the time allotted. So likewise, if we see a fat guy in an apartment, we would either not want to pay attention, or be to startled by the appearance of a not attractive person in a not-house to register what the guy has to say.

What this means is that for advertising, along with media overall; change will be a long, hard and extremely subtle process; as it will involve changing the culture's idea of what normal is. It will change when we can be used to seeing a pizza delivery to an apartment and not wonder why the pizza guy isn't outside, or why the sun isn't bright in the sky at 7:00am in TV land. It will change when we are used to seeing an average looking Joe on television as much as we are used to it in real life. It's when we can equate real normal to media normal in the time it takes a commercial to air, that commercials can start looking more like reality; more like we want them to.

I think the best images in the media would be images of diverse women with diverse interests. Women doing things that truly makes them satisfied. I believe this can help women and men see, it's normal to be different from each other.  I want the images to show women in love with something and even if it is different. Their passion in whatever interest is the new form of beauty. The new beauty is not just a look or action.

The reason why I say diverse women so is that women can consume media and feel like I have to be different. The answer isn't to say there are too many skinny ads so lets do plus size models only etc. All the skinny women would feel insecure now. That would only change the details of the beauty myth but not actually take it out. When I diverse I also mean across race as well. I think more even race representation would dispel the idea of I gave to be thin and have white features to be beautiful. Freeing them from being " the self-hating, ever failing, hungry, and sexually insecure state of being aspiring 'beauties'."(66 Wolf)

Women are also pressured not only to look a certain way but also act a certain way. "Boys are generally shown in ads as active , rambunctious, while girls are more often passive and focused on their appearance."( 142 Kilbourne) Again images of girls being passionate about different things It can dilute the image of what the girls is supposed to act like. It can also encourage girls to pursue interests they otherwise wouldn't pick up. They wouldn't have to look or act like anything in particular. If they really do like to mess around with fashion or muay thai, both are fine.

 I remember in class the professor said, "We can't be what we can't see." I once saw this guy who had his mac book pro cracked by this guys car and he didn't get mad. After that I thought if he could have that much self control, I can suck it up a bit, too. Just by having those images present can help people explore out of the current white male gaze.

In the beauty myth, they speak of "all media incresingly depending on the myth."(78 Wolf) That media is under pressure to produce the myth due to large chunk of their revenue comes from their advertisers. I suggest look for new ones perhaps something that doesn't rely on "the myth" to sell their products Reach out to those unconventional interests and work with them. Those company can tap into a new customer base. Having more variety of different women displayed in ads can also help new ethnic groups to identify with their product. The emphasis on passion rather then sex would divert the thought of women as items.

Works Cited

Naomi Wolf - "Culture" from The Beauty Myth
Bell Books - "The Oppositional Gaze "
Jean Kilbourne - "The More You Subtract The More You Add: Cutting Girls Down to Size" 

Alternatives (Revised)

Advertisements have been brainwashing/controlling us for decades now. It started with Edward Bernays who convinced Americans that the United States should join World War II. He then started to target women and manipulate women into thinking that cigarettes were “torches of freedom.” Now women are being targeted everywhere, especially in magazines. According to Jean Kilbourne, “We are exposed to over 1500 ads per day, constituting perhaps the most powerful educational force in society (121). Kilbourne also states that the ads, “sell value, images and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy” (121). Edward Bernays’ “torches of freedom” does just that, it brings the value of equality and status. Due to these values, we have made ads a “powerful educational force.” That means “schools” that educate us are the big corporations! Corporations are essentially creating a cult, and in that cult we are to believe that “no one is ever ugly, overweight, poor, struggling, or disabled either physically or mentally” (122). In Beauty and the Beast of Advertising, Kilbourne points out the dehumanizing and objectification of women in Ads. She explains how we have ads that just use women’s body parts as a convention. A common body part that is used is the legs. The sad part is that we get sucked into this vortex of ads and allow it to get us to buy it, even though it does not make sense.

Luckily some companies are starting to see how inhumane their ads are. One company would be Dove. Dove decides to take a different approach in advertising. The approach is one where they use “real women” as models. Women of different colors and sizes. Not only do they have “real women” as models, they also have a campaign that tells women to embrace there supposed “flaws,” such as freckles, wrinkles, or weight. This is a good step into the right direction. It’s a baby step, because Dove’s probably using this campaign to their own advantage, and the campaign probably helped them with their sales. Even though this is a marketing scheme, the ads that Dove puts up probably gave women inspiration in embracing and accepting their looks. Even though Dove is using this campaign to their advantage, I really feel that it can set an example for other brands. I saw the Dove Evolution video in 2010, and it had left a huge impression on me. I knew about Photoshop, but this video was really an eye opener, I had no idea Photoshop had that much power to change a person's looks so drastically. Dove also branches their campaign out to older women, in telling them to to proud of their wrinkles. They also have a campaign for kids, that helps with self esteem. Dove’s approach on advertising would be what Cortese calls “institutional advertising.” Cortese says, “Institutional advertising is designed to remind consumers that this company had been a part of their communities for a long time and should continue to be a part of their lives” (51). Cortese used the example of the fuel efficient car that was invented for the environment. Dove is just like that fuel efficient car, except it’s saying that they are changing for “real beauty.” Instructional advertisings are all advertisements that help companies promote that they are on the good guys side, but really they just want to sell their product.

from Google images

           Cortese made a few points about advertising and that is the fact that they create an illusion that everything is genderized. Now a lot of things are genderized because of the ads. He made a great point when he used those cartoon pictures where the media presents men as doctors and women as nurses, or men eat and women cook. Women are always shown as service to men. There needs to be ads that address equality in women and men. There needs to be an ad where women and men are both cooking and eating together. Lego does have a ad that complements this. They made an ad where a boy and a girl have legos. We need more ads like this. It shows equality. Both kids are posing happily in the same stance; neither appears more active than the other. This ad is also an alternative to the children that pose as sex objects. Children posing as sex objects is another problem Cortese brings up. We need more ads like this Lego Ad where kids are just happy and having fun, just being kids.

from msmagazine.com

Another major alternative to mainstream images would be the Ms Magazine. This is a feminist magazine, and from Gloria Steinem’s Sex Lies and Advertising, one can see the strong and touching history with Ms Magazine. In Sex Lies and Advertising we see how Ms Magazine had trouble getting companies like Estee Lauder to put their ads in Ms Magazine because they believed that feminists do not wear makeup. When Ms approached the president of Estee Lauder, his excuse was, “Estee Lauder is selling “a kept-woman mentality” (119). Revlon also opted out of Ms when Ms had a Soviet woman on the cover of their magazine. The reason Revlon opted out was because the Soviet woman had no makeup on.

Ms Magazine is different from other mainstream magazines. Mainstream magazines like Cosmopolitan would have ads from Estee Lauder and they would have good relationships, because they have beauty sections that tell women how to apply foundation on or how to look younger. According to Naomi Wolf, “Women’s magazine transmit “information” about the beauty products in a heavily self-censored medium. When you read about skin creams and holy oils, you are not reading free speech” (82). In other Wolf is saying that when the women’s magazines have articles on looking younger, or on applying creams and other beauty products they are not writing what they want to write, they are writing what the advertisers want them to write about. That is the difference between Ms Magazine and mainstream women’s magazine, Ms would not have articles that advertisers tell them to write. If an advertiser told them to write an article on their beauty product, they would not follow suit.  

Another great aspect of Ms Magazine is the fact that they follow the oppositional gaze. Ms Magazine writes on experiences of women from different cultures and backgrounds. They do not Photoshop their pictures. There articles touch on things that really matter in life such as equality for women, and it does not just dedicate a few paragraphs  the whole magazine is dedicated to it, unlike the Seventeen magazine where they have one page that tells girls to pledge to accept their bodies, when they have a “flawless” model’s picture on the next page. Ms does not have that, they will tell you to pledge and when you turn the page you learn about issues in equality and the picture on the next page will not be a airbrushed picture of a model, it will pictures of real women that have advocated and dealt with real issues. These women are women that are fighting for all the other women out there.

taken from msmagazine.com

Resources:

Gloria Steinem - “Sex, Lies and Advertising.” 

Jean Kilbourne - “Beauty and the Beast of Advertising."

Naomi Wolf - “Culture”

Anthony Cortese - Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads Sexism in Advertising

http://www.msmagazine.com/

http://www.jeankilbourne.com/resources-for-change/ (kilbourne provides a lot of resources and alternatives here)

You Don't Need It

Advertising is a roughly one hundred billion dollar a year industry that both reflects and creates contemporary ideals for the cultural mentality (Kellner 127). As Jean Kilbourne says in her article The Beauty and the Beast of Advertising "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" (Kilbourne 121). The industry often creates images of people that are unrealistic. Not to mention often being racist, sexist, ageist etc. Most people, especially girls and young women, are susceptible to the messages that they receive (consciously or not) from advertisements. They can make people feel pressure to buy unnecessary products that they believe will enhance their lives, and can make people also want to look more like the models they see in ads. This can lead to eating disorders and low self esteem. Any way you spin it, advertisements are not good for the public, at least not the way they are always created. 

So why do they work?!?!

As Douglas Kellner states in his article Reading Images Criticallly "Ads work in part by generating dissatisfaction and by offering images of transformation, of a 'new you'"(Kellner 130). Do we as consumers actually even want that though? I don't want to be feeling bad about myself all the time and constantly wanting to change my image. It is costly not only to my wallet but also to my self esteem. As was mentioned in class numerous times, advertisers often claim that they are just giving the people what they want. We want to see ideals so that is what they churn out. But, as we can see below, a heartwarming ad such as this one can be extremely effective without conforming to the classic poisonous formulas.

Yay!

Here is a great advertisement for the Girl Scouts and a perfect example of how advertisements can exist without the plasticity and shame. It is inspirational, powerful and just plain cute. It does not conform to the male gaze. It does not depict someone who looks so perfect that they cannot possibly exist. Finally, it does not make the viewer feel bad about themselves. It does the exact opposite. An ad like this actually shows a real girl like many of the viewers that they can accomplish great things in this world. Young girls need more images like this so that they can feel good about themselves and believe that they can do whatever they set their minds to. When I came across this I actually found a smile on my face. I felt proud of the young girls in America and proud of the Girl Scouts for issuing such a great advertisement. When I look at other ads I often find myself rolling my eyes or scowling so this was a breath of fresh air. 

What we as a society would have to do to change how advertising works would be... wow. A LOT of work. As Gloria Steinem explains in her article Sex, Lies and Advertising, getting companies to advertise in a magazine geared toward breaking away from the sexist and plastic norm is not easy. Ms. Magazine struggled for years, passing through the hands of many companies before it was finally just merged. Not only are advertisers afraid to be associated with a feminist magazine, but they often did not even realize when an ad was offensive or belittling and could therefore not be put in the magazine. Also, companies of products that were typically only advertised to men such as alcohol and cars found it absolutely puzzling that women would want to purchase their products as well (Steinem).

So, there must be a way to challenge these old ways of guilt advertising. Create some alternatives. Well, how does anything get done in the media world without focus groups? The first step would be to find out what types of ads actually appeal to women in a positive way, and not in one that guilts them into buying something that will make them look or feel more like what the model(s) portray. The next would be to create ads that are anti ad. Huh? Making ads that in some clever way or another turns advertising on its head. Here is an example:

This was one of many great ads from the art group The Anti Advertising Agency. Clever huh? Check out their mission and some of their most interesting pieces at their website. 

Advertisements like this would be hard to fund, obviously. So money would have to be raised through community groups and online donations from people who appreciate the work. People are changing their views about ads though. Thankfully, college classes such as Women and the Media allow for critical thinking to occur about something that has permeated our culture and our brains since we were babies. The abundance of advertisements in places like Times Square are cool looking for a few seconds (mainly due to all the lights and shiny things) but after that it just looks like clutter. Advertisers put on a fake show, and its sort of scary how many of us buy tickets to it like product hungry zombies. The more our country's youth is educated, however, the less of a hold advertising will have on us. That is why it starts with you and me. Educate your loved ones and friends, especially your little siblings and other younger relatives. We can raise awareness of the rampant and poisonous consumerism one person at a time. 

Works Cited

Kellner, Douglas. “Reading Images Critically Toward a Postmodern Pedagogy.” Gender, Race and Class in Media. Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003.

Kilbourne, Jean. “Beauty and the Beast of Advertising." Gender, Race and Class in Media.  Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003.

Steinem, Gloria. “Sex, Lies and Advertising.” Gender, Race and Class in Media.  Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003.