Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Final Part 2.1

1. Examine Bayer's "Great Ideas" advertisement (page 347, Meggs). Compare Bayer's association of the female image with excess and corruption with contemporary treatments of women in ads. Do we still see this same association? If so, how has it changed? Is it now seen as a good thing or a bad thing? Use at least two contemporary ads. 




Bayer's ad is a collage of tempting evils--- money, gambling, (expensive) food and wine, diamonds, and even women. By including women into the ad Bayer transforms the woman from a a someone to a something. In short, he objectifies women. The woman becomes part of a group of things that are associated with excess and corruption. 


Today, ads still continue this practice of objectifying women and associating them with excess and corruption. The most obvious way they get this message across is using sexual appeal. Looking through a magazine, it is easy to find that good majority of the ads featuring women have some sex appeal. Most of the time the woman is shown as someone beautiful who gets what they want. Take for example the ad for X-Bra. It has a woman dressed in nothing but a black bra and shawl barely covering her arms; the quote below it says "Buy one X-bra, get free drinks." The look of the ad screams sex, but the quote reinforces the idea that women can use their body as a tool to get what they want. And what they want is more things (drinks and whatever that may lead to in this case). This degrades women down to just sex appeal and thus women are seen as objects (objects that can be used to sell pretty products). Women are also seen as corrupt because they use their body to get what they want. By wearing a sexy little bra they can coerce free drinks out a man and anything else they many want. Therefore once again associating women with a bad reputation just as Bayer did in his ad. The second ad on the right demonstrates how women are still also associated with excess. This ad shows a women sitting on a couch surrounded by shopping bags with just one word for a description: "Jackpot." The quick message you get from it is that women love shopping for lots of unnecessary things. 


Another thing that we often see in today's ads is women portrayed in traditional gender roles. It's hard to get women out of those roles when they have been around for so long. Very few ads try to take the women out of that role, but most don't or they make the women appear more "modern." Take for example the ad below. You see a woman dressed up in business attire, so it makes you think she might have a job outside of the home (something"professional"). This is modern because during the mid 20th century women generally stayed home and men worked. Even her attire is updated, she's wearing pants and not a frilly dress or skirt. However, the primary message that you get from the ad is that her "job" is really more associated with the traditional homemaker--- she takes care of/deals with the kids at home. The ad says her job is to be a mother first, and then maybe whatever career she may have comes second. 

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