Are We Buying It?

Advertising has grown to be an industry worth billions of dollars across the world.  Almost all public places have ads in sight and all forms of media are also filled with it.  While this helps companies sell their products, and helps consumers to learn what is on offer, many believe that this huge amount of advertising can be harmful.

The media has portray women in our society by making models “artificial,” but the women in our generation still tend to follow them.  The media’s view of beauty is based on a Eurocentric ideal, in which a blonde haired, blue eyed, thin white female with large breast is considered the “ideal” beauty.  In Anthony Cortese’s “Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads: Sexism in Advertising,” he says, “’The exemplary female prototype in advertising, regardless of product or service, displays youth (no lines or wrinkles), good looks, sexual seductiveness, and perfection (no scars, blemishes, or even pores).’”  All the ads influence girls to be white, tall, and having nice colored eyes.  Worldwide, this beauty myth is being reinforced in the commercial culture through magazines, television, and film.  In doing this, women’s perception of beauty is being altered to fit the media’s unrealistic view of beauty.

Men’s bodies are also no longer immune from exploitation in advertising.  "Now in postmodern advertising, it is the man's turn to be the sex object - stripped and moist, promoting everything from underwear to women's fashion" (Cortese).  Ads also set the “ideal” look for men.  For years, there are more and more photo ads glorifying men’s muscled torsos, backs, and thighs.

Beauty, as seen in cultures around the world, is expressed and valued in many forms made by those individual cultures.  As seen with popular television shows, commercials, and newspaper ad, beauty is the main focal point for which advertisers have been using as the object of desire to make an ordinary item seem more lucrative and marketable.

Using sex to make a sale remains a favored marketing strategy for many products and this is the standard features in advertising.  Men and women are often targeted with different messages.  Ads for men usually present women in suggestive and vulnerable positions.  Skimpily dressed models in sexualized poses draw the interest of male consumers objectifying women as “commercially designed” male fantasies.  In “The More You Subtract, The More You Add: Cutting Girls Down to Size," Jean Kilbourne says, "'Women, especially young women, are generally subservient to men in ads, through both size and position.'"  In most ads, women are represented as the weaker species and submissive to men.  They are always categorized as housewives or sex object or both.  

Ending this with a clip from BBC comedy series "That Mitchell and Webb look" doing a parody about advertising. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9fFOelpE_8