As Jane
Kilbourne states in Beauty and the Beast of Advertising, “The average adult
will spend one and one-half years of his/her life watching television
commercials.” Throughout our lives we are being bombarded with
advertisements. They tell us who we are. They promote ideas, and sell values
and images. They define what it means to be successful, beautiful, sexy,
valuable, and normal. As we watch and consume, we internalize these images that
we are constantly being sold. They are the backbone and the foundation of mass
media. A company needs advertisements to sell their products and the
entertainment industry need advertising to create revenue. Ads are everywhere
and we can’t escape them, so how do they affect us.
With most
advertisements, we see the same image. White, wealthy, slim, young, fit,
blonde. “Advertising creates a mystical, WASP - oriented world in which no one
is ever ugly, overweight, poor, struggling or disabled either physically or
mentally,” (Kilbourne 122). However, when look at the world it is no secret
that most people don’t look or live like the images we see. The images are
artificial and unrealistic. They create standards that are impossible to reach.
Through these images women are meant to be “sexy and virginal, experienced and
naive, seductive and chaste,” (Kilbourne 124).
By the
time a girl becomes an adolescent she is consuming these ideals, and beings to
face a series of “losses”. She loses confidence, and begins to doubt herself
and her value, because she does not fit the mold she is being told is right.
Not just by advertisers, but by society as a whole who enforce the ideas that
the advertisers capitalize on. They are also being told that “what is most
beautiful about them is their perfume, their clothing, their bodies, their beauty,”
(Deadly Persuasion 132). This message is destructive, destroying self image and
often leading to harmful habits, such as anorexic or even being super passive
or submissive. Not speaking up when they may need too.
This does
not only apply to women. Men too are seeing these advertisements and being told
multiple things. Often in advertisement men are portrayed as hyper masculine.
Boys are told to be strong, aggressive, and violent. And when they are not,
they are “shamed for being weak,” or for being too feminine (Deadly Persuasion
133). They are being told that they are “accountable to no one,” even when
their actions may be dangerous and harmful to those around them. (Misframing
Men 7). These images also sculpt the way they see women, that women should be
thin, and perfect. Not only do advertisements make unrealistic standards for
women to reach and promote harmful ideas, but they also exploit and objectify
women during the process. Women are used as sexual objects to sell the product.
They aren’t seen as whole being, human beings, but simply a “thing” to sell to
the white male consumer.
And
besides the objectifying of women, we see absolutely no people of color or
queer narratives portrayed in these advertisements. There is completely no representation
of the “other”. So how do we combat this?As previously stated advertisements lay at the foundation of
mass media. We need them, and the possibility of them being completely
eradicated is impossible. On a surfaced level we could say advertisements need
more “realism”. Real narratives and real stories about real people using
products. As seen in the Campbell soup
#realreallife campaign. But is that enough,
these companies are still have objectives – selling their products. And to many companies,
portraying these “other” narratives are risky and dangerous. We must think more
radically. Such as the removal of white males out of the executive positions of
these companies and advertisement agencies. Or exploring the possibility of
more public media. Public media is neutral. They don't use advertisements
because the government funds it. This way we can get around advertisements and
filter out those harmful images.
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