Images are used to sell, promote or evoke a
feeling. Advertisements generate responses
be them positive, negative, but mainly for economic purposes. Behind advertising images are the subtexts to
deeper issues that affect gender, cultures and social classes. Some of these issues include sexism, racism
and power. The images below are to advertise jewelry, but the actual message that
it is promoting is degrading women. It
suggests that if a woman wants to get a ring; and the ultimate goal marriage, she
must be sexually available to a man. The
second image equates a woman’s physical attributes to food. The third image
suggests male dominance and the position of a woman is beneath the man. The
fourth image depicts not only the hierarchy of the white man, but of
racism. The advertisements mask the subliminal
messages the advertisers send to consumers that are damaging and offensive.
Bordo states, “It is the created image that has the
hold on our most vibrant, immediate sense of what is, of what matters, of what
we must pursue for ourselves” (Bordo, pg. 104).
This statement suggests that what we as consumers see, is what appeals
to us; what we believe to be correct. That women need to be “available”, men
are in control and that food is as important to look appetizing, just like his
woman.
We as consumers feed into media consumption and
spend millions of dollars perpetuating a cycle that allows big corporations to
continually demean women, cultures and social classes. When I look at ads that place women as
objects of pleasure and only good for sexual conquest, I recall John Berger’s
work where he states, “men look and women appear” (Berger, pg. 47). That
statement holds true to past and popular culture critiques on advertisements, where
women are still objects and men dominating.
It seems that we as a society have come so far, women’s rights, racism,
but when you look at the images that we buy into today, I question how far have
we really come? How do we, how do I
change the way marketing executives come up with the ads that they do?
Some alternatives to perpetuating advertisements
that demean human beings, be it by gender, race or social class is by
boycotting those products. To publicly
say "NO" to the mass consumption that has been fed to us as a society by big
corporations. Another alternative would
be to petition big corporations to work alongside organizations that promote
awareness of the damaging effects and the messages that big corporations have been and who are continuing to promote a false way of life.
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