Negative Advertisement
In today’s society sex sells everything and is one of the most used tactics to promote products from hamburgers to perfume. Women are used as sex symbols to persuade men and women to buy the products. Men find these women attractive and are sold instantly and women see the men mesmerized by these sex symbols are become envious and want to buy these products just so that they feel they are in the same league as the sex symbols. Women are portrayed in so many different sexual lights in the advertising world. There is the fantasy women, the aggressive women, the underage girl, and the portrayal of women as objects and being controlled by men by the use of violence. The last of this portrayal of women is what I want to focus on for this essay. Women are being shown, in advertisements, of men controlling them in violent manners. This sheds a negative light to women in general and to the youth that look at these ads and see an acceptance towards this behavior.
The ad that I chose to exploit this appearance of men controlling women in a violent manner is a Dolce and Gabbana one. “Beauty pornography looks like this: The perfected women lies prone, pressing down her pelvis. Her back arches, her mouth is open, her eyes are shut, her nipples erect; there is a fine spray of moisture over her golden skin” (Wolfe 132). This is an exact depiction of what the woman looks like in this advertisement. The only difference is that there are four men standing around the woman and another one is holding her down by her wrists. The men are not smiling and have a look of dominance in their eyes. They know what they want and they are going to get it. The women looks like she is trying to fight back a little but has a look of submissiveness about her. What product is trying to be sold in this advertisement, I am assuming of course, is clothes. What is so ironic about this portrait is that there are not a lot of clothes being worn by the six individuals in the advertisement. I do not understand the purpose of this advertisement in selling a product; instead it is selling an idea. The idea is that women are just men’s play thing. This is clearly implying a gang rape of a woman with one man holding her down and the others watching on with lust in their eyes.
The woman in the ad, like stated above, looks as if she is slightly attempting to fight, but knows the role of being submissive. This shows vaguely that the woman is where she wants to be. Advertisements like these “trivialize and eroticize violent behavior”, says Jean Kilbourne of Killing Us Softly 3. This puts the idea into the head of young people that violence is ok and being men’s play thing is ok. Men want this kind of women, and not just any men, but the tall, dark, handsome, built men, which leads women to think to get men like this they have to lower themselves to violence and meaningless objects. “Men want objects and women who want to be objects” (Wolfe 144). This is the ideals that women have today in society, brought about by our media. There are not too many women that do not feel a need to be wanted or even lusted after. It is human nature, but what these ads are portraying is that it is at the cost of losing a sense of self worth and respect. Wolfe exclaims that, “young women who grew up with such violent imagery –are made to fear and distrust their own beauty and fell ambivalent about physically expressing, in dress, movement, or adornment, their own sexuality” (Wolfe 162). This is a prime example in the ways that violence and controlling affects the persona that women see in themselves. I think a main issue that individuals need to take into consideration is the audience that these ads are targeted towards. Although this ad was banned, there are still ads like it out there and are mostly in magazines for women sixteen years to twenty-five years old. This is also when women see the most physical abuse. By being exposed to these types of ads and seeing the acceptance of society, younger women are starting to fall into the trap of being submissive and controlled. This can be so damaging to one’s life and their feeling of self worth.
There is no need for advertisements like these in society today. The ads do not promote their product, but only an idea. An idea that a woman is only worth how much the man pays attention to her. This is so negative and hurtful to every aspect of a woman. It breeds a lack of self worth and settlement of control and possible violence.
Positive Advertisement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46UPositive advertisement is very rare in today’s society. Advertisements are all about selling products and what sells products better than sex appeal. Usually this kind of advertisement puts a negative light on to women and men’s perception of women. There is one company that is trying to reverse this negative light on women into a more positive one, and that is the Dove Company. Dove has launched a new campaign called “Evolution” and this will be the focus of this essay. This ad gives positive reinforcement for women to love the body that they have and that the reality is that there are not very many people who have the perfect body.
The Dove “Evolution” advertisement firsts starts off by seeing a woman come into the screen and sit down. She is an average looking women, nothing incredibly “special” about her. While sitting there make-up and hair artist comes in and in a fast paced video show that transformation to looking glamorous. She is next taken to a photo shoot to where she looks great and very beautiful. Then her pictures are taken to a computer screen where her neck is elongated, hair darkened, eyebrows raised, skin give flawless complexion and lips plumped up. The end of the credits says “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted”. This ad is promoting a workshop for girls, put on by the Dove Company.
This advertisement sheds light on the reality of our view of beauty. As women we look at the glamorized women in magazines and on television and compare every little one of our body parts to theirs. In Naomi Wolfe’s novel The Beauty Myth, she states that, “’Ideal’ imagery has become obsessively important to women because it was meant to become so.” (Wolfe 59). This is so true and sad at the same time. Instead of rejoicing with the body that we have, we are complaining about every little aspect of our bodies. What Dove shows is that even a beautiful woman is not beautiful enough because she has to be touched up by the computer, so as a society we have this goal to be like people who are unrealistically beautiful and that do not exist. “By now readers have no idea what a real woman’s 60-year-old face looks like in print because it’s made to look 45” (Wolfe 83). This is the problem that society is faced with, impossible expectations by the media and their unrealistic view of beauty.
Dove has taken on the campaign to show that women are beautiful in their own body and that women should not try to live up to the beauty portrayed in the media, because it is unrealistic and impossible. Dove touches on the fact that because of this kind of media that is shown that is why women have such a distorted perception on what true beauty really is. This advertisement opens the eyes to women that any ordinary woman can look like a supermodel as long as there is make-up and hair stylist and computer to take away all the flaws. This advertisement should empower women to love the body that they are in and not compare to the fake posters of unrealistic women. This advertisement shows women that are super models up on billboards and in magazine and on television look just like the average women and there is nothing physically unbelievably beautiful about them. This ad should inspire women to live their lives proud to be a woman and look the way that they do and not compare to unrealistic beauty portrayed by the media.
The media and advertisements are so full of lies and unrealistic portrayal of beauty that it is hard for a woman to love the body that she has and not always compare it to the women in the media. Any woman can be beautiful as long as she has a staff that makes her that way. Dove is a great company who has taken on the task of inspiring women to be comfortable and happy about their own body. They have shown the hidden truth about the media so that women can see that these supermodels are just average women and look the same as everyone else. Dove has inspired and will continue to inspire the true beauty of women and their bodies.
