Essay on The True Merchandise for Sony ericsson´s Cybershot Phone

Jean Kilbourne’s film, Killing Us Softly 4, depicts the way the females are shown in advertisements. She discusses how advertisement sell concepts of normalcy and what it means to be a “male” and a “female.” One of her main arguments focuses on how women aspire to achieve the physical perfection that is portrayed in advertisements but this perfection is actually artificially created through Photoshop and other editing tools. Women in advertisements are often objectified as weak, skinny, and beautiful while men are often portrayed as bigger and stronger. Advertisements utilize the setting, the position of the people in the advertisements, and the products to appeal to the unconscious aspect

When the viewer looks at the image, he, or she, is instantly forced to make quick connections between the subject and the product. Upton’s clothing and expression on her face combine to not only represent a beautiful individual and appeal to the viewer’s “desire for sex,” as discussed in Fowles’ 1994 article, “Advertising’s fifteen basic appeals,” but also portray a strong, regal figure that the viewer can want to emulate, and subsequently will be persuaded to purchase the product. While we are under constant bombardment by advertisements that objectify women or portray women as helpless and dependent on men, it is encouraging to know that some companies are beginning to realize the female-objectifying “mold” and are starting to appeal to a wider demographic by demonstrating both beauty and

What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you like what you see? In Jean Kilbourne’s article, “Two Ways a Woman Can Hurt,” she discusses the sexualization of women in advertising and how it plays a role in violence against women. Elline Lipkin discusses the causes and effects of negative body images in her article, “Girls’ Bodies, Girls’ Selves.” Although I agree with Kilbourne that advertising and violence can be related, it is important to consider Lipkin’s argument about how advertising shapes body image in a negative way because while a lot of women experience violence, everyone experiences the effects that advertisements have on body image.

Throughout Jean Kilbourne’s film, Killing Us Softly 4, she states that advertisement is frequently used to communicate with potential consumers and persuade them to buy certain products. While advertising’s main purpose is to sell products, modern advertising does more than just sell a company’s merchandise. Advertisers create the values, images, and concepts of love and sexuality that every member of society is pressured to meet; they tell consumers who they are and who they should be. Modern advertising tends to portray the two genders, male and female, in completely different ways. Men are described as powerful beings who are believed to be insensitive and brutal; they are posed and photographed in positions that create a perception of strength and dignity. On the contrary, women are viewed as the weaker sex and taught to believe that their outward appearance determines their value in society. In a Cosmopolitan magazine, a Miss Dior perfume advertisement uses a beautiful naked woman, with long, brown hair and brown eyes, barely covered by a blanket to sell their product. While the perfume being sold should be the focus of the ad, the woman occupies most of the image lying on a bed in a provocative position. She appears to be around twenty-two years old, which appeals to the belief that sexuality only belongs to the young and attractive. In today’s society, women are viewed as vulnerable, objects used to please men, and flawless.

The purpose of the ad may be just to sell a product, but the repercussions that the ad creates may create a false and unattainable image of beauty for young men, at a time in which young men mourn to be accepted by society. Thus, the current generation of men will have a distorted view of reality, and will be unable to be happy if they do not fit this image create by the

Everyday we expose ourselves to thousands of advertisements in a wide variety of environments where ever we go; yet, we fail to realize the influence of the implications being sold to us on these advertisements, particularly about women. Advertisements don’t just sell products; they sell this notion that women are less of humans and more of objects, particularly in the sexual sense. It is important to understand that the advertising worlds’ constant sexual objectification of women has led to a change in sexual pathology in our society, by creating a culture that strives to be the unobtainable image of beauty we see on the cover of magazines. Even more specifically it is important to study the multiple influences that advertisements have

In the beginning of the semester, we were given ¬¬¬¬a short answer assignment that focused on how advertising and media shape contemporary concepts of gender, sex, and sexuality in our society. The assignment was to choose an advertisement from a magazine, newspaper, or an internet source that has at least one person in it. The advertisement we chose was suppose to be an image that catches your eye.

Sexist ads show that society is dominated by the same masculine values that have controlled the image of women in the media for years. Sexist advertisement reinforces gender stereotypes and roles, or uses sex appeal to sell products, which degrades the overall public perception of women. The idea that sexism is such a rampant problem comes from the stereotypes that are so deeply embedded into today’s society that they almost seem to be socially acceptable, although they are nowhere near politically correct. Images that objectify women seem to be almost a staple in media and advertising: attractive women are plastered all over ads. The images perpetuate an image of the modern woman, a gender stereotype that is reinforced time and time again by the media. These images are accepted as “okay” in advertising, to depict a particular product as sexy or attractive. And if the product is sexy, so shall be the consumer. In the 1970s, groups of women initially took issue with the objectification of women in advertisements and with the limited roles in which these ads showed women. If they weren’t pin-ups, they were delicate

An example of this is society’s perception of beauty. Western culture dictates that in order to be considered attractive a woman much sexualize herself. She can do this by abiding by current fashion trends which highlight minimal clothing, and most women become accustomed to this culture because everyone wants to fit in and feel attractive. In turn, by abiding by these trends women naturally objectify themselves. The revealing clothing that is so common today draws people to their bodies, where they become more of an object than a person (Moor). Also, in a male dominated society, women often use their sexuality as a means to gain the power that they lack. This is almost a necessity for women today because in order to be valued by those in power—men— women become objects because men predominately value women on their attractiveness (Moor). This attitude began with a new era of feminism regarded as third wave feminism. Third wave feminism embraces current culture, and uses sexuality to gain power, in an effort to no longer be subjugates to men. This is one of the reasons that women are not offended by advertisements that treat women as sexual objects and how society’s current sexualized ideology began (Zimmerman and

Today's media is increasingly pornographic, and the notion that 'sex sells' has infiltrated the advertising of virtually all products and services. Both men and women are sexualized in contemporary media, but the extent to which women are sexualized is far greater that men are. Jean Kilbourne states in her talk, The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women, "There are stereotypes that harm men, of course, but they tend to be less personal, less related to the body." The stereotypes that drive the portrayal of women in the media lead to the repeated objectification, particularly sexual objectification,

Advertisements set the standard of beauty because an audience perceives what is being distributed as an “ideal woman.” If she was not the “ideal woman” then why is she on the cover of all the magazines? In Media/Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences, David R. Croteau and William D. Hoynes write, “The most visible ad is the cover of the magazine. The standard image of the ideal woman on the cover suggests that purchase of the magazine will provide clues to how and what to buy in order to become the ideal woman.” This woman on this magazine, they claim, is simply being used as a form of covert advertising to sell products (182). The mindset is that if a woman purchases all of the products as the one on the cover then she will then be the “ideal” woman and will be in a comfortable position in that aspect of her life. She will not have to worry further of beauty. However, that is unrealistic as humans cannot reach perfection and even if they were exactly similar to the ideal woman the media would simply move on to the next interpretation of

In terms of women and sex appeal, the world of advertising has changed a considerable amount. Many of the advertisements which are seen in newspapers, magazines, and television fail to portray women in a more positive light. The image of females in numerous advertisements are merely viewed as fascinating "objects" while they are also being displayed in a fashion that is supposed to appeal only to men, i.e. exploitation of the body. Though these types of advertisements are very effective at selling their products to consumers, it seems as if the minds ' of women, especially younger women/teenage girls are being corrupted as they are pressured to live up to the ideal image: sexy and thin with a little extra curves.

In this essay I will be looking at two advertisements that were published in 1972 and 2008. The reason for choosing these advertisements is that they show the different ways of how women are being portrayed in the 20th century and in the 21st century. I will thoroughly analyze each advertisement based on stylistic devices, colors, image and context. There are various approaches to portray the ideal young lady. One man can portray her as one who has the minimum essentials, like two legs, two hands and a head.

In John Berger’s Ways of Seeing he offers the idea that “to be a woman has been to be born...into the keeping of men.” He illustrates on page 46, that women are born to satisfy men, at least in terms of art for most European painters. He empathizes this point by pointing at nude portraits and oil paintings. I decided to analyze my own choice of advertisement to compare his theory in the modern world. I chose an American Apparel advertisement; the company has a history of invoking reactions from the public. The advertisement does not require much analysis to cause offense to the general viewer. American Apparel crosses the line in more ways than one. However, the advertisement I chose was rather tame in comparison to many others I considered.

The most conspicuous part of the advertisement is the image of the woman in front of a black background so that only her face is visible. This in itself is important because it is automatically making her face the focus of the advertisement and not her body. Unlike most advertisements in which a woman’s body is exploited to sell products to men, the UN Women advertisement draws attention to her eyes, therefore making her your equal, since you have to make eye contact with her instead of looking anywhere else on her body. She is completely expressionless, looking at the viewer with a blank stare, a totally blank slate onto which viewer’s reflect their own views. Even more important, the woman pictured is a Muslim woman, as displayed by her hijab. The hijab is widely seen in western society as a form of oppression by men, to make women subservient to them, and by juxtaposing an ad for equality with the