Post 3 Advertising

I have been fascinated with the entertainment industry and the media since a young age. Even if I were not a media major, I would still be able to tell you which strategy most advertising agencies use, “sex sells”. One has to wonder though, what toll does this take on the women who pose for these advertisements? And what toll do the underlying messages in these advertisements take on the regular (non-model) women who view them?

The media uses advertisements to sell ideal beauty. This usually means a tall, thin, young, white woman with narrow hips. Advertisements can, and often do, objectify, dismember, dehumanize, animalize, or infantilize female models. The article 'Constructing Bodies, Deconstructing Ads: sexism in advertising' puts it simply, "Ads use visual images of men and women to grab out attention and persuade. In advertising, women are primarily depicted as sexual objects or sexual agents" (Cortese, 52).
To objectify is to treat another person merely as an instrument or object. This happens when non-physical attributes are disregarded and the woman is seen as the object. “Thus, she turns herself into an object- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight” (Berger, 47). 

Dismemberment occurs when parts of a woman are shown, but only parts apart from the whole.  In the article 'Culture: The Beauty Myth' Wolf touches on the advancements of technology "that tampers with photographic reality" in beauty advertisements. "To airbrush age off a woman's face is to erase women's identity, power, and history" (Wolf, 83). To dismember and airbrush off everything but a woman's breasts gives her no identity to begin with.

An example: 

 If something is an object and can be easily dismembered, it can be cast as less than human, and dehumanization is the first step to justifying violence against women. To dehumanize is to portray a person in ways that make it seem they are less than human.
 

Animalization associates human beings with a non-human animal. A good example of this is the Axe ad where women come at the man wearing Axe like a heard of wild animals, only covered in tiny loin cloths, acting very animalistic:

The women featured in Axe ad are portrayed as primal beings who just happen to look 'naturally' sexy while chasing this man. Just as Jean Kilbourne wrote in her article 'Beauty and the Beast of Advertising' however, "the image is artificial and can only be achieved artificially, even the "natural look" requires much preparation and expense" (Kilbourne, 122). Preparation meaning time spent in hair and make-up before the models shoot the commercial and expense on additional airbrushing.

Infantalization occurs when a model is made to appear childlike. We see this in ads which feature models with pigtails and baby-doll dresses on.

            Then there is the issue of thinness. Models face enormous pressure to reach and maintain an ‘ideal’ weight, which is usually an unhealthy low number. Models do what it takes to stay at their ideal weight though, because casting directors more often than not want skinny female models. Thinness does not usually relate to strength or power, rather to a dependence on the big, strong man to take care of her, displaying a lack of power. Body language in advertisements often shows this lack of power among women. Men are typically featured as the strong and powerful force, while the woman might appear helpless and weak. As John Berger summarized in Ways of Seeing, women are there “to feed an appetite, not to have one of their own.”
This Dolce and Gabbana ad is an example of how body language speaks in advertisements:

 

            Silencing is another symbol of powerlessness in ads. Women often don’t get to voice their opinions, instead staying quiet and looking pretty.

Most advertisements show a clear discrimination against overweight women. Until the Dove ads featuring ‘normal’ women came along, there was extremely little representation of the everyday woman. The danger in this is that young girls look at advertisements shot with supermodels and think that they must uphold that level of ‘ideal beauty’ and must keep the number on their weighing scales down. So many women, supermodels or not, face struggles with their mind and body when it comes to weight.  Having a distorted body image can lead to anorexia, bulimia, and/or binging and purging, in turn having major negative effects on one’s health.  When it comes to body image, women are significantly more dissatisfied than men with the way they look. Often times, women rate themselves as larger than they actually are.

To be having conversations about the underlying messages in advertisements is a good start, but I wonder, when if ever will we see a real change? Changing these images could change unrealistic, ageist, racist, sexist ideas of ideal beauty. Changing the messages that are being subconsciously registered could mean a change in the way that men perceive women, and the way women see other women. A real change in the ideal weight of models could have a great impact on the self-esteem of young (and older) women across the world. I would love to see more advertisements that promote women’s strength and internal beauty. A good example of a positive message for women includes this Nike ad featuring strong women who care about their health and fitness:

            Typical ads that have been around for decades, promoting sex, feeds into the idea that women are the lesser sex. Women are seen as dependent damsel in distress while men are portrayed as the strong hero.  In order for big changes to occur, small changes need to lead the way. Being a woman is about more than the duty to “keep on being beautiful” (Wolf, 67). If we want to see overall changes in the “sex sells” mentality of advertising, this means reevaluating ‘ideal beauty’ and the way that products are marketed by putting more of an emphasis on having a positive self-image.