The Power of Advertising

The saying "Sex sells" stems from some sort of awareness of objectification in advertising and media. It is not saying that the act of sex sells but instead, it is saying that sexualizing an object (in this case-women) to make it desirable is what makes sales. The use of the female body in advertising is both perverse and discreet. For example, the ad for the Venus razors shown during class last week showed women with smooth legs being touched by men. Though it was not overtly sexual, the implication is that men would not touch you if your legs are hairy.

At face value, the purpose of these images is to sell a product. However, the pattern of objectification is also selling an idea; the idea is that the companies producing these images have the solution to our problems, which is ourselves. Advertisements are basically saying, "You don't look like this but with our product, you can!" This is problematic because the reality is that mostly everyone will never look like the men and women in advertisements, so it turns into a cycle of buying more and more products to achieve something that can never happen; it's a major win for the companies that produce these ads.

The women in ads are often depicted as being an object of lust. They often have something that regular women do not have whether it be long, straight hair or big breasts. Women in ads are also depicted as being passive and complacent, which can give girls that idea that being perfect includes becoming an object to be admired instead of being admired for their strengths and talents. "Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at...Thus she [woman] turns herself into an object- and more particularly an object of vision: a sight" (Berger 47).

Kia commercials featuring dancing hamsters is one thing. Giving them female human bodies is a creepy thing. Source: The Huffington Post

Hugh Jackman for women...

Advertisements also set high standards for men. Men in advertisements are depicted with nearly unobtainable bodies, featured with strong muscular bodies. The difference is while women are shown to be passive, men are shown to be aggressive or domineering. More often than not, ads featuring a man and a woman depict the man trying to dominate the woman whether he be touching her body or embracing the woman in a way that he is seen as a protector. "On September 10, 2001, recall, firefighters weren't necessarily the bad guys...but they were hardly the swoon-at-their feet heroes they were on September 12" (Kimmel  6). For men, these ads promote a hypermasculinity that is not inherent in most men. This leads to the idea that to be a man, you must meet every criteria of  "manhood." If you do not check off every single criteria, then you are less of a man.

...and Hugh Jackman for men Source:themarysue.com

Race is another issue that is faced in advertising. "To stare at the television, or mainstream movies, to engage its images, was to engage its negation of black representation" (hooks 117) Similar to how women cannot achieve the levels of perfection of ad models, people of color cannot achieve the advertisements' idea of beauty because most of the models are white. The representation of people of color in ads are similar to their representation in films and television. People of color in ads are often used as "tokens," or a way for companies to say that they are representing non-white people while still prominently featuring white models. It is not enough to include one black woman in a group comprised of 5 white women when in real life that group would consist mostly of other women of color. It no longer becomes representation, it becomes pandering. The lack of race representation leads people of color to believe that they will not be beautiful if they are not white and it is especially difficult for them to achieve something like that.

In this before and after ad for Dove,ere is an implication that black skin is dry or dirty. Source: today.com

Pop culture helps perpetuate these ideas from advertisements. The idea of the perfect woman having pretty hair, a clean face and nice breasts and butt is still prevalent for a lot of female roles in movies and television. The Transformers movies are incredibly guilty of this trend; it has beautiful women, robots and cars (which are mostly Chevrolet vehicles...interesting). You see Megan Fox fixing a Chevy Camaro: it's a double win for the guys in the audience, they get to see a sweet muscle car and a ridiculously hot woman working on it. It's an even greater win for Chevrolet because now there's an association between their cars and attractive women plus the merchandising with the toys that feature their cars transforming into Autobots and Decepticons.

The best way to flush out these images of simulated perfection is to first educate the public that this is a real thing. Many people refuse to believe things if they cannot see it for themselves. Show them the same images that they have always seen but show it to them in a critical matter. Ask them what they see wrong with it then tell them what is wrong with it if they cannot see it. Once an understanding is established, then they can pass the information along to their own friends.

The next thing to do is to establish agency and use it to spread the message. The Internet has made it much easier for average people to get the messages across to wider audiences. Platforms like Twitter and YouTube have been especially important in many modern activist movements. For example, the #blackout event that occurred a few weeks ago featured black people embracing their own beauty through selfies. It spread through Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram and it showed the world that "beauty" does not have to mean "white beauty." More movements like #blackout have the potential to change the world's views on advertising.


Works Cited
1.) Berger, John. "Ways of Seeing". London: British Broadcasting, 1973. Print.
2.) Hooks, Bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston, MA: South End, 1992
3.)Kimmel, Michael Scott. Misframing Men: the Politics of Contemporary Masculinities. Rutgers University Press. 2010