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"Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere."
Tipalet Cigarettes |
"Advertising has to be audacious and compelling, otherwise people wouldn't pay attention and then they wouldn't purchase products and the whole capitalist system would fall apart because people would no longer be exchanging money for goods and services and then where would the world be?"
"We are only giving the people what they truly want."
"Sex sells"
These justifications have been used for years by advertisers seeking to defend all of the new ways they attempt to catch the eyes of potential customers in a market where there is more competition and more distractions than ever before. Advertising is a $130 billion a year industry thus there is a lot at stake and advertisers must walk a fine line if they hope to continue attracting business (Kilbourne, 121). This has led to some extremely racy and controversial image and stereotype usages and over time these ads have drawn greater criticism. Luckily more regulations have been introduced and popular opinion has shifted somewhat since the women's liberation movement. Society has grown increasingly less tolerant of the demeaning portrayal of peoples of diverse backgrounds and of women (such as the Tipalet cigarette ad above) and rightfully so. Despite this fairly recent shift in opinion advertising still poses a problem and plays a considerable role in how men view women and how women view themselves. As John Berger stated in
Ways of Seeing, "Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only relations of men to women, but the relation of women to themselves." Society may have grown less tolerant of certain stereotyped, violent, and overtly sexual images yet the advertising industry still earns millions to produce content that flirts with the line between stereotyping, violence, and sexuality in order to grab attention and gain an audience and until regulated this behavior will continue.
"We are each exposed to 1500 ads a day, constituting perhaps the most powerful educational force in society," Kilbourne remarks in Beauty and the Beast of Advertising (Kilbourne 121). And in many ways this is accurate--when a group of children from all backgrounds were asked to identify famous historical figures versus fictional characters created to advertise products the historical figures did not win out. Even the sample group of famous individuals did not include historically significant women. Wendy of the Wendy's franchise did make an appearance though.
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"Is it always illegal TO KILL A WOMAN?"
Ditney-Bowes Postage Meter |
It should be noted that the two historical figures used, George Washington and Jesus Christ, are both universally recognizable figures seen on our currency and seen in churches throughout the world. Women on the other hand do not appear on American currency except for the limited Sacajawea and Susan B. Anthony dollar coins. Presidents are now being printed on these coins in their stead and we have not had a female President to date. Rarely do we seen monuments erected dedicated to women and their accomplishments however mysterious ingenues such as Mona Lisa and The Girl with the Pearl Earring have captured our attention for years. Wolf explains in the chapter "Culture" in
Beauty Myth that the reason why middle class women often looked to glossy magazine pages and the silver screen for models to emulate is because of the lack of attention paid to women throughout history, their heritage being "submerged" over time giving them few role models to emulate but their mothers and their sisters, often raised in the same environment where men served as the heads of the households, heads of the businesses, and heads of the state. These women were also isolated and sequestered to the home leaving them with only magazine models and movie stars, beautiful and flawless, because there were so few women elsewhere to look to for guidance. Although movies have attempted (some attempts more successful than others) to produce strong female heroines advertising has not caught up and in studies it is shown that women are still primarily presented as housewives or sex objects (Kilbourne, 122). Although we may not see ads today that outrightly say "Is it always illegal to kill a woman" or "It's nice to have a girl around the house"these messages can still be found in modern media in other more subtle ways.
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"It's nice to have a girl around the house."
(Note: girl not woman)
Leggs Slacks |
John Berger asserts
"The promise of the commercial is not just "You will have pleasure if you buy our product," but also (and perhaps more important), "You will be happy because people will envy you if you have this product." The spectator of the commercial magazine herself is transformed by the product into an object of envy to others — an envy which will justify her loving herself. The commercial image steals her love of herself as she is, and offer it back to her for the price of the product." Women are taught early on that their value is connected to their beauty and their ability to please others. As Wolf notes male characters in stories are often stand unquestioned when they are cast as the heroes however female heroines are only the leaders of their own stories because they are beautiful. Often times things only happened to them
because they were beautiful (Wolf, 61). This is exemplified in fairy tales such as Cinderella and Snow White thus women receive the message from a young age that if you are not the "fairest of them all" then your story may not be as relevant.
The big question regarding the advertising industry is whether they are producing these images utilizing stereotypes because we ourselves seek this and This
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