Post 2 - Sex in Advertisements

Advertising is a big part of media industry; companies come up with very unique ideas to market their product in order to make more revenue. Throughout time advertisers have starting using sex as a way to sell their products and sadly too most people, sex sells. The purpose of the billboards, commercials, magazine ads, etc are all focused to sell one thing which is the product.

Sadly when advertisers market their product, not only are they brainwashing the consumer to buy it but also are making a sexist statement. In the commercial I have posted for Clear Men shampoo, it depicts the man as the hero as the woman is dressed half naked washing his hair. It tells men that if they use the shampoo they will get women like the one in the video. The ad even gives men the sense that they have dominance over woman as they will be there slave and a woman must be there slaves or in this case, sex slave.

As going through the readings, I noticed that Jean Kilbourne had mentioned that advertising and media are the leading source for sex education. This doesn’t mean the proper sex education, it just tells young viewers what sex is but not the precautions.  As young kids see and watch these ads, they feel that they need to incorporate that in real life. If you look at the fragrance ad, any young girl will get the idea that if they wear this fragrance a man will do that to her. 

Racism is still an issue even though its 2013, we shouldn’t be using this as a way to get viewers. TV shows, ads, commercials still have racist comments in them. Such as in the TV series, Family Guy; Seth MacFarlane still has racist comments on this show pointing out different stereotypes of all cultures. Not only that, Sony used racism in a recent ad for the release of the white Sony Playstation but this was immediately taken down. 

We as a society can learn throughout time to not get sucked into sexist and demeaning ways the advertisers portray women but advertisers will never stop using sex as a way to sell there products. They too have to make a living. Men’s ads will always have a woman who is half dressed or in a sexual position and woman’s ads will have be the same since it will also sell the same to them.