Advertising Its Strategies and Alternatives

        An alternative to these mainstream media messages can be a message that argues going to school and being educated is better than being objectified as nothing more than an item. Many advertisements shove the idea that women need to be perfect otherwise they are not valuable constantly in their eyes. One example is how Naomi Wolf explains, how after World War II when women went back home and were no longer working, the idea of being a good housewife, was no longer making advertisers money (Wolf 64). The advertisers then had the idea that having women be obsessed with beauty in female magazines, would be profitable for them, the advertisers (Wolf 64). For example, Wolf says that “somehow, somewhere, someone must have figured out that that they will buy more things if they are kept in the self-hating, ever-failing, hungry, and sexually insecure state of being aspiring “beauties”(Wolf 66). Here Wolf explains that advertisement’s and magazines introduce an unrealistic idea that women must always look pretty and that if they do not achieve this goal they are not only not pretty, but not a valuable person anymore (Wolf 66). This was only a method for the advertisers to make money but was also a successful way to make women fall into being insecure about themselves, thus, causing them to spend time hating themselves and working towards an unrealistic goal of looking like the models in the advertisements (Wolf 66).

           In addition, mainstream media also argues that women (but also men too) are only valuable as objects that are usually sexualized  (Cortese 54). For example, Anthony Cortese’s article “Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads Sexism in Advertising”, discusses how both men and women are objectified in the media and how the idealized image is not even real (Cortese 54). He claims that, “ads portray women as sex objects (figure 3.20) or mindless domestics pathologically obsessed with cleanliness” (figure 3.21) (quoting Kilbourne 1989). As well as that “the perfect provocateur is not human; rather, she is a form or hollow shell representing a female figure” (Cortese 54) and that “this ultimate image is not real. It can only be achieved artificially through the purchase of vast quantities of beauty products (Kilbourne 1989)...Even the models themselves do not look in the flesh as impeccable as they are depicted in ads. The classic image is constructed through cosmetics, photography, and air brushing techniques” (Cortese 54). This idea is unrealistic and unattainable because it uses measures such as computerization advancements and therefore argues that its consumers must look like the computer constructed models (Cortese 54). It is unfair then to argue that people should emulate these unrealistic computer sculpted images. Assuming that women do purchase all of these makeup products, they would still not look like the person shown in the photo, because that person is not what they would look like in actuality (Cortese 54). Jean Kilbourne in “Beauty and the Beast of Advertising” elaborates on how women are constantly forced to not be satisfied with themselves and accept validation of themselves from others’. She says that “[s]he is made to feel dissatisfied with and ashamed of herself, whether she tries to achieve ‘the look’ or not. Objectified constantly by others, she learns to objectify herself” (Kilbourne 123-4). She demonstrates that as a result women give up the ability to love themselves and be the individual they want to be, as well as becoming objects (Kilbourne 123-4). Women then no longer care what they think of themselves but what others think of them (Kilbourne 124). 

         Even young girls are being told through advertisements that they have to look a certain way to be valuable and to get a males attention (Kilbourne The More You Subtract 132). They are told that who they are as a person does not matter and will not help them keep their male counterparts attention (Kilbourne 132). She makes this claim when she is talking about an advertisement, saying that  it says ‘“[h]e says that the first thing that he noticed about you is your great personality, says an ad featuring a very young woman in tight jeans….[h]e lies” (Kilbourne 132)  and that “If this is your idea of a great catch, says an ad for a cosmetic kit from a teen magazine featuring a cute boy, this is your tackle box”. As a result Kilbourne goes on to explain that young women do then believe that they can look like the unrealistic images in magazines and will try with all of their effort to do so (Kilbourne 132). She explains that advertisements are then part of our culture in making the viewer believe that they must resemble perfection and beauty as the advertisements see fit (Kilbourne 132). Susan Douglass explains how advertisements cause the spectators to have many mixed, contradictory emotions and how their opinions and selves are lined along those of the media (Douglass 9). She says, “[t]he media, of course, urged us to be pliant, cute, sexually available, thin, blonde, poreless, wrinkle-free and deferential to men. But it is easy to forget that the media also suggested we could be rebellious, tough, enterprising, and shrewd…The jigsaw pieces of our inner selves have moved around in relation to the jigsaw imagery  of the media” (Douglass 9). Douglass explains here that spectators allow their views to be shaped by the media. When they have the ability to speak out against it, they do not always do so but instead accept what they have heard or seen (Douglass 9).  

          However it should be acknowledge that advertisings do not just try to sell products to make a profit but instead that there are groups of people who are in activist groups who try to send a positive message to accomplish a goal that they have (Cortese 48). For example, Cortese speaks about how there were advertisements that wanted to help find homeless people shelter and warn against the dangers of pesticides in snakes (Cortese 48). In my own advertisement, I want to have images of women, some of them wearing glasses, with the slogan, “Smart is the new sexy.” Next to those images I want to have women in suits with another caption saying “this woman is the head CEO of her company, and that’s hot” and lastly “This woman is a doctor and that’s attractive”. Within my advertisement, women are not objects of products, and they not being told they need to look a certain way. They do not have a product being shoved in their face telling them that they have to look a certain way to be important. The models are not all of the same race and they are acknowledge for their mind, not their body. My advertisement encourages education and career that is not just exclusive to men. My advertisement:
This women is the head CEO of her company and that’s hot
 This women is a doctor and that’s attractive.

         Smart is the new sexy

 Education and Career are Not just for men Anymore.

        

         What is also interesting about advertisements is that they do not, according to Douglas Kellner, want to just force their ideas on how people should look, or how they should live their lives, but how they will be viewed if they do a certain task, such as smoking (Kellner 129). One of the topics that Kellner talks about is how cigarette companies advertised how if men smoked they would be considered a “real” man (Kellner 128). For example, he says that the “‘Marlboro Man campaign was an attempt to capture the male cigarette market with images of archetypically masculine characters. Since the cowboy Western image provided a familiar icon of masculinity, independence and ruggedness, it was the preferred symbol for the campaign’” (Kellner 127). Here Kellner explains that the cigarette/advertising company was able to use the symbol to portray what they felt an ideal man should be. An ideal man, they illustrated, was someone who smoked a cigarette. This company was not just trying to sell a product, but also an ideal image. Another goal of advertisers. They did the same thing to convince women to buy their product and smoke (Kellner 128). They did so by claiming that a cigarette became a symbol of freedom, hip, modern, and liberal women (Kellner 128). For example, the Virginia Slims company had an advertisement claiming, “You’ve come a long way baby” (Kellner 128). Kellner discusses that the Virginia Slims ad was trying to appeal to women by convincing them that it was alright for them to smoke because society had made it socially acceptable and that it was alright to buy and use a “male” product. Another interesting idea of advertising, according to Danae Clark, is that there is another market that advertisers try to, but not always include, gays and lesbians. Clark explains that certain advertisements can appeal to these consumers that heterosexual consumers would not notice (Clarke 144). As previously stated, the goal of many advertisers is to make a profit, but they can also help lesbian individuals avoid being ostracized if they dress in a heterosexual manner (Clark 148). Clark says that “…gay window advertising appropriates lesbian subcultural style, incorporates its features into commodified representations, and offers it back to lesbian consumers in a packaged form cleansed of identity politics” (Clark 148). Clark explains that advertisers use some of the language/codes that lesbian individuals would understand, then offer them a heterosexual way of dressing, which would help avoid in them being taunted by others (Clark 148). Here the goal of the advertisers other than producing a product, is allowing their consumers to not be harassed by others (Clark 148). In addition this method is interesting because they use techniques their consumers could understand both for a profit, and an identity.

          Lastly while many advertisers have sent negative messages to women and young women, as well as men, there has been an attempt to fight against a media that sent negative messages to women. Which was Ms. Magazine’s beginning. Ms. Magazine was a magazine made for women that featured advertisement but not accompanying articles that spoke about the product (Steinem 112). Due to the fact that Ms. Magazine had the reputation for addressing the issues of women and feminism, that were not generally discussed, they were often not able to gain advertisements by many powerful businesses (Steinem 112). Not writing articles about the product, was also unhelpful. For example Steinem discusses how she tried to persuade Estee Lauder to have his advertisement in the magazine he refused because he believed that the product would conflict with his usual consumers and ideology (Steinem 119).  Steinem claims that “[h]e concedes that beauty features are often concocted more for advertisers than readers. But Ms isn’t appropriate for his ads anyway, he explains. Why? Because Estee Lauder is selling ‘a kept-woman mentality’’’ (Steinem 119). Ms. struggled with keeping their magazine alive with powerful helpful messages and the fight against pressures from advertising's still exist today. Although, it is important to try and remember who one is and not succumb to advertising pressures and be happy with oneself. That in fact, the model in the glossy pages may indeed be air brushed. As well as that one must be able to think about themselves and the world, in the way they want to, not in the manner some else want them to.

To Dove campaigns working to raise self esteem for young girls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei6JvK0W60I            
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUsKIApTewQ&feature=related

hfarraj
Hasnah Farraj

          Bibliography

Clark, Danae. “Commodity Lesbianism.” Gender, Race and Class in Media.  Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003.142-151.

Cortese, Anthony. “Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads: Sexism in Advertising.” Provocateur Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising. United States Of America, 2004.45-76.Print.  

Douglas, J Susan. “Introduction”. Where the Girls Are Growing Up Female with the Mass Media. 1995.  3-20. Print.

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, 2003.126-132.

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, 2003.121-125.

Kilbourne, Jean. “The More You Subtract, The More You Add Cutting Girls Down To Size.” Gender, Race and Class in Media.  Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003.128-154.

Steinem, Gloria. “Sex, Lies and Advertising.” Gender, Race and Class in Media.  Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2003. 112-120.

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


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