Post 3

          “They tell us who we are and who we should be. Sometimes they sell addictions.” (Kilbourne 121) When it comes to the media, there is a distorted image of what is the right way to look or to act. On top of that, there is an enormous amount of people who are misrepresented and unrepresented, while a small portion of the same type of people are constantly featured in numerous media outlets. With a constant portrayal of a certain type of man, or a certain type of woman, it leads people to struggle with their own image while at the same time trying to become this recurrent image they see. However, the point of advertising is to convince people that they are lacking without a certain type of product, so the media creates these unattainable images of beauty, or exaggerated levels of power that people struggle throughout their life to achieve.

This ad implies that a beach body only qualifies as a
skinny body in order to promote a weight loss supplement. 

            Women are constantly portrayed to improbable standards of beauty in which many scenarios, the models in the ads don’t even resemble themselves in real life. “Women are constantly exhorted to emulate this ideal, to feel ashamed and guilty if they fail, and to feel that their desirability and lovability are contingent upon physical perfection.” (Kilbourne 122) Advertisements are constantly creating commercials that try to promote products that help to change women’s appearances, because these ads feed off the insecurities of woman. A woman can never be good enough because she can always be better, if she had this certain product. Ads enforce this idea that woman are in “[constant] need of alteration, improvement, and disguise,” (Kilbrourne 122) and this becomes the slogan for these companies that think this is the only way they can promote their products.

What this advertisement is telling woman is that as long as
they have their looks, and large breasts, then their skill
set does not matter. What is the most important is
being attractive. 

The ad is showing what a "real man" looks
like. Someone who is built and muscular,
and can do heavy lifting, but also someone
who smokes. 

            Men are as well given these standards to that for some, may be impossible to achieve. Not only are large, muscular men being portrayed as the ideal image for men, but the amount of power that men are portrayed to have is exaggerated to unrealistic and misogynistic extents. For a long period of time, Marlboro ads depicted a “real man” as a cowboy, who was the symbol and embodiment of masculinity. These cowboys were strong and built for hard labor, and depicted as controlling enough to handle horses. Kellner notes, “in a postmodern image culture, individuals get their very identity from these figures.”(Kellner 127)  So men start believing that smoking and being physically built is what encompasses a real mean, while women believe that this is what is sexy and what men should look like, while cultures outside America who stumble upon these ads assume that American men are all like this. This type of thinking process occurs with most ads that create beauty images and standards for their message, and it is “an important and overlooked mechanism of socialization as well as manager of consumer demand.” (Kellner 127) People seem to forget that these images are self destructive, and that self criticism that results from these ads is exactly what media advertisers hope for in order to sell.

Axe is providing this idea that men who use their products
will be able to get any girl. To promote their products Axe
portrays a sexist ideology in which men can easily
have power over woman. 

            Advertisements not only try try to create an ideal image for people to try to resemble, but they as well play on stereotypes in order to engage a demographic for their products. The issue with stereotypes in ads, is that it reinforces a false image of a certain group of people and continues to outcast them based on these stereotyped differences. “Negative stereotyping presents harmful cultural images” because they create these false assumptions that every person in a particular gender, race, culture, or sexuality encompasses those stereotypes. (Kellner) It creates a system of “othering” in which people tend to view a group of people below them, while as well creating this gap between people in which they feel they cannot identify with anyone      
who is even remotely different.

Neither of these ads include POC, and All State has released
several other ads only portraying white people.
It's as if only one race that is gay is allowed to feel
protected by All State

           Commercials are constantly being directed towards straight people. Heterosexuality has dominated ads since ads became a thing. However, there has been a shift in the production of ads that finally provide representation for gay people. Despite this shift, it has been mostly white, gay men who are being represented, while gay people of color and lesbians are yet to be given the spotlight. Donae Clark describes the process of deciding who to create ads for, and notes that it is the group of people who are more identifiable, accessible, measurable and profitable. (Clark 143) So in this sense, advertisers noticed the profitability of the gay male audience, and create based on stereotypical notions of how gay men act and what they enjoy. However, lesbians are seen to advertisers as a much more difficult group to market for, which puts them at a disadvantage to put lesbians in a box and feed off a stereotype for the creation of an ad.

            There are ways to go about creating ads without attaching racist and sexist methods, and representing different types of people. However, one of the problems is that many directors behind these commercials are most likely wealthy, white men who are either supplementing these ideas or approving them. The more variety of race, gender, sexuality in directors would lead to more variety of representation in advertisements. Stereotypes are as well unnecessary in ads because it only provides racist and sexist ideologies that these ads reaffirm to their audience, which harms society as a whole. Products need to be promoted as just amazing products, without attaching stereotypes as to who would enjoy the product more. Adding a variety of different people as well would not only help attract a wider audience and a wider consumerism for a product, but it would provide representation for a majority of society, and send a message that people are different but can still enjoy the same things so these differences aren’t as large as people assume.