The problem, as I see it, is how advertisers use women to grab the viewers’ attention. Take this ad from Melbourne, Australia for example…
The caption says “She loves a cockatoo. Cockatoo Ridge Wines. Why wouldn’t you.” The ad was originally run in the 1970’s and has recently been reposted during a vintage posters campaign. What...? So to be sexy like her, I should drink the wine? Or… to get a sexy girl like her, a man should drink the wine?
It’s definitely not new that women have been linked to wines and beers… take a look at this one from Heineken:
This Heineken ad has a whole series of ads and commercials around a sexy blonde robot who serves you beer from a keg in her abdomen. Does that even make sense? What bothers me most is that the underlying message seems to be that the ultimate woman is a robot who “dumbly” serves you a beer.
Here’s a real atomic bomb BMW "recently" put out which got women all over the world in an uproar. It’s an ad for used BMW cars.
The caption reads “You know you’re not the first.” Since the young woman in the ad has nothing to do with used-cars, you can put the offensive pieces together. Personally, this one definitely crosses the line of appropriateness.
Even the most well-intended organizations can fall victim of using sexy pictures to grab the viewers’ attention. Take this ad from an organization in the USA:
This ad copies the famous U.S. Army recruiting advertisement with a picture of Uncle Sam. But I don’t recall ever seeing Uncle Sam’s chest.
Here’s just one more… one that took me by surprise. Here’s the ad:
So what can we do as women to improve the way the media and advertisers use our image to promote their products? How can we get the respect we deserve as women? And what can we do for future generations so they can enjoy messages that are more appropriate and respectful?
14 comments:
I don't even know where to start with this one, except I'm sure that I can say the ad that makes me the most angry is the BMW one. They're all dangerous, though, in part for their varying degrees of severity. The BMW ad pushes further than usual which will more likely result in pushing other advertisers further, unfortunately, than it will result in pulling in the reins of the advertisers (as a result of the fury it causes among some viewers.) Attention is what advertisers want! It brings in business. It seems like the advertisements that are less shocking are equally dangerous, acting as the more powerful desensitizers. We're taught this principle from the classic story of the frog who's put in a pot of cold water which slowly gets warmer until the frog gets boiled.
It's sad that advertisers do this. More sad than that, to me, is that we do our part to encourage, or at least allow it. Would we turn down the opportunity to buy a BMW if the price were right and we were in the market to buy? BMW's are fantastic cars! I'd like to think we'd pass it up in favor of a more respectable company.
Maybe when we come against anything like this that is a challenge to our moral code, it's a good opportunity to check ourselves and make sure we're the kind of people who stand for the good. I recently came up against a challenge like this. I want to buy a certain color blush from NARS, but when I was looking through their display, I noticed that some of the colors were blatently named after aspects of sex and even oral sex. I had to ask myself if I really wanted to support a company like that. Sex isn't bad! It's wonderful when it's right (which I believe to be in marriage.) But this is blush, and middle-school girls will be buying it and getting a crude sex education in the same stroke.
This is Janna from Washington, D.C., (originally raised in a small town in Vermont.)
Thanks for the post, Em. Great blog. :)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1993368502337678412
I, too, have seen the Radelescu add on a few of our bloc apartments and had to look twice. I even worked through the translation to make sure that I was reading & seeing what I really thought I was reading & seeing. I have also found myself thinking more and more about this subject since coming to Romania over a year and a half ago. For some reason, it is even more apparent to me here than it ever was in the US, even though I -know- that we see this through blatant and subversive means ALL the time - everywhere. I suppose what am I trying to get at is that it's something that we can fight and fight, maybe even find ourselves throwing up a little in our mouths as we pass it (when it's particularly graphic), but besides performing write-in campaigns and maybe even staging walk-outs (Sidenote: A walk-out/boycott has happened at least once via one PC TEFL teacher who gave a lesson about the objectification of women in response to a risque jeans advert!), but does that even put a dent in the ad market? Sadly, more often than not, the answer is -no-.
In playing devil's advocate, I would also argue that there are some women out there who thoroughly enjoy being viewed as sex objects and even produce ads in the sexiest ways they can imagine. I have one friend in particular who has chosen to become a 'stage performer' - aka a professional stripper. She loves this job more than anything else she has ever done in her life. She also models and produces ads for a few of her local companies. This woman is very well educated, extremely brainy, and witty on top of it all. She knows full well what kind of 'sexual object' she is portraying, but that is not the way she sees it. She sees herself as a beautiful women who has something to provide the world via her body. She is not explicit... she just uses her sex... to sell.
With all that said, I can understand a certain amount of the ads out there. I also want to mention that women are not the only ones objectified by ads (though we are, more often than not). In my personal opinion, if it is not crude, explicit, or will give young women a skewed idea of sex... I'm ok with it. That's a fairly difficult line to draw. However, I have a hard time denouncing all ads with beautiful women when we are, on the other hand, telling our young women not to be embarrassed of their bodies.
Yes, it is a huge challenge, but one that we are encountering and dealing with in our particular, positive ways.
-Heather (in DTS, RO)
Yes, It's extremly offensive, and not to mention intrusive to those innocent little children who see these signs and wonder what to think of "the woman" including "the woman" who gave them life. "The woman" that they will one day marry and "the woman" that they will one day raise.
Some ways I have chosen to kill these adds is to never use or buy the products that they are advertising.
I meant the child as being a small boy, I assume if it was a small girl it's even more harmful, as to what they are seeing them selves and what the world expects them to aspire to.
happy birthday!
Hey are men allowed on here, Nils?
If so Toby might start chiming in, you know he loves to have an opinion :)
I still need to say my piece on this topic, I'm going to get to it soon I promise.
A woman is a decent human being, not a product, and no way that she can be seen as a sexuall object ment to feed the eyes of a man who has as only desire seeing and touching.
The woman is not a cigarette, she is not a drink, she is not a sexuall way for the man to relax and give up a vice.
The woman is the person tha can be a psichologist, the psichologist that can talk regarding offering a help, a different help then the one with sexuall implications. The woman represents the image of a loving mother, the image of the artist that loves beauty, the delicat immage of a man's little sister, the purity immage, the clean beauty immage.
For the simple thing that some women get fooled by easy winning money and decide to sell their immage and their body, we must not make associations between the woman's immage and the immage of a used car, that can still be used. A car is just a car, a cigarette is just a cigarette, a drink is only a liquid insede a bottle, and a psichologist is a decent woman, dressed in a nice, but decent manner, who talks with decency, without making sexuall allusions.
Women should think twice before posing like this. We are not beautifull if the immage of our little dressed body appears on a poster, for everyone to see it. We are not beutifull if we hear behind us men telling that we are "goodoes". A goodie is a dish.
A human being can not be eaten or tasted by other people. We can only turn back in time, in the stoneage, when canibals used to exist.
Product selling can always find other things to use as examples on posters. The immage of a human being must not be disgraced.
For the record, men are allowed to comment on this blog (even though it's titled "Among Women"). There are a lot of men out there who support women and have ideas to share. But if you make people mad... you won't be able to hide behind my apron... :)
I have every confidence that we will all show mutual respect.
Just to chime in, I like a lot of what has been said so far. While Heather makes a good point that it's difficult to reach out a hand to stop the waves of the media ocean, I like the feeling that in my own personal life, as Janna and Rana point out, I can make educated decisions and spread awareness to others.
Heather also brings up a very interesting consideration. What about the women who like showing the beauty of their bodies? It reminds me of a discussion I had once with my sister about high heels. She blamed men for the fact that we women felt compelled to be beautiful through distorting out bodies and wearing high heels. If anyone is interested in the history of high heels here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_heels
Anyway... I argued what it's because women are constantly competing with each other to be slender-er, pretty-er, sexy-er... we're constantly dissatisfied with ourselves and pushing other women to feel the same. So one big issue is women's own competitive nature of being "the fairest of them all".
But for advertisers... I think they should be more responsible where their advertisements land. As Rana said, it's inappropriate for younger children, as they are still developing their paradigm of men and women, to be exposed to some of the more graphic advertisements. That's were we all have legitimate concerns and can arguably do more to protect them. Of course, I will definitely enjoy the accommodation as well.
And I really liked Catalina's comment which kinda brings these ads into a different light... we're more than a cigarette, more than a fine wine... we're wonderful women... and that's a beautiful thing.
To answer your question Emily. We individually can't change what choices women make when it comes to them selling their bodies for money for male enjoyment and persuasion, or womens willingness to believe what is being fed to them about what we should look like.
I can think of some reasons why women participate in this.
* For monetary gain
* For their self esteem
* For their ego.
It saddens me to think so many women in this world are quite happy to do so. This says to me we as a society are failing and we as families are failing.
The only way we can change the way in which women are viewed needs to start in the home from when our children are young and carried through our lives. This needs to be enforced by both the father and the mother.
If a daughter is taught skills and abilities and has a high self image and self esteem no matter what her bust and waist size are, she not only has the capabilities to earn a good salary (virtuously) but feel good about herself without selling her virtue and true beauty.
If boys who become men, learn to have respect for women and treat them accordingly, then I would hope they wouldn't fall for such shenanigans that society are allowing and hence what the media feeds on to sell items or services.
One must also realize that advertising is a means to an end, what happens when so many people would do the end anyway without the means (meaning buy the product anyway because it's good not because of how a campaign was advertised).
The sad part in this equation is does the company think it was the advert that sold the item rather than it's own merit of being good product? Or do they even care.
Personally I'd much prefer more money was spend on improving items and services, rather than advertising and when one advertises that they can use their wit rather than sex or a women to do it.
Just think of the olden days where adverts were all done on the radio, it was their wit in verse and tune that saw them through not images.
Lets face it I would say 99% of all the images in posters and what presented on TV are brushed or modified anyway so now we have a non realistic image that is supposedly selling items or services.
It's pretty sad that so many fall for such antics.
BMW does a brilliant reverse statement move. We say it said, "You know you're not the first." But the picture makes us think it said, "You don't know you're the first." Both equal statements. I agree with Janna that the BMW ad makes me the most angry. Because of it, I'm working a list of BMW phone numbers in various regions. The BMW ad advertises girl-sex. Stereotypically, adults are not virgins, so how can you guarantee you're the first unless it's with a child? Sure, the gal might be legal, but how old does she look? That's what counts. Break her in, the first 300 miles before it gets old. Putting a new twist on "she being Brand" by e.e.cummings.
(Sorry this comment is way after the time of your original post, Emily!)
I remember in my all-girls dorm at Ball State we had a discussion board and one month this topic was the subject. I was shocked that there were women who left comments saying they felt that it was okay to show so much skin etc. in advertisements - that if women felt their body was beautiful, why shouldn't they show it off if they wanted?
I'm afraid this is a theme I have heard quite a lot from other women - that you should "show off what you've got" and that attraction of the opposite sex is the only ultimate goal, as if it was the only worthy goal.
I combat these ideas for myself by not reading magazines that suggest similar sentiments and I try to stay away from watching TV only because the amount of commercials with sexual connotations really seems to be on the rise. This is a disturbing thing in our times, and we can say No!
Nice comment Sarah! I like how you ended it with an empowering "we can say NO" :)
Interesting that you brought up the common response - that we can show our beautiful bodies as we want. I've heard that often too. I agree that the woman's body is beautiful, but I hate the thought of it being exploited to sell something completely unrelated and revolting. That begs the question of the subjective-ness of what is 'revolting' though, so....
At any rate, I do like how you point out that we can avoid being exposed to or supporting companies and products which exploit the effectiveness of selling "sex"... but I wish we could do more to keep it within reasonable limits.
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