Dangers of Advertising

 In the capitalist society we live in, it is no doubt that our big companies are profit driven. Because of that, they focus specifically on things that generate the most money and have uncovered it to be one main thing: sex. Since we also live in a patriarchal society, then of course, the sex that sells is women. As we all know, the sexualization of women is a very dangerous thing. Ads are everywhere, constantly haunting women with the thought that what is portrayed in the ad is what their body should look like. The mental torture that comes with it is what should be the main focus. The ads subconsciously make women feel like they are sex objects and subjects of the male gaze. They are haunted with thoughts and how they must look a certain way and how their assets might not be big enough or how their waist isn't thin enough. Then followed by thoughts of how they have to look a certain way to garner the attention of a male because that is what defines their worth: how much attention they get from males. How do they garner this attention? By being the media's definition of sexy and perfect.
  The over-sexualization to cater to the male gaze is so blanant and obvious. “The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly” (Mulvey, 837) Whether it is the subliminal message portrayed in the following image:

Kate Upton on the cover of GQ magazine.
Is that really just a popsicle or could that easily be imagined as something else?

or the message so blatantly stated here:

Because the picture on the left is my face when I haven't had enough KitKats

the thought of sex is always there. The first image might be her eating a popsicle, but is that really what people would amount the image to? This image is one of the many ads that add onto this culture of sex=money, but also relies on our conditioning from this culture to really decipher the image to see what the intention was. A child would see it as just a popsicle, but those that have been so exposed to this culture already knows the sexual messages attached to it. The image after it is similar too. People that have never been exposed to sex culture would wonder why that woman is making a funny face; the rest of us know that there is something going on in the picture that has been cropped out. This ad may not be a legitimate ad published from KitKat, but the sentiment is still there. If it has gotten to a point where it has become so easy to make sexual puns like this, and have this pass off as a legitimate ad, then we know our culture has really gone too far.

 Images like the one above just completely objectifies women making them become something for visual pleasure. Body parts are cropped out and only one area is in focus, making the body part an object for the male gaze. 

  "It is important to consider how media representation might impact not only on very vulnerable young women but on all women. More, it is important also to thing what such representations say about our society and its attitudes towards women and how the media might be actively engaged in reproducing and legitimating ideas about femininity that neither comply with the reality of their experience and potential nor combat the ongoing inequities, abuses, and self-violations which are the familiar everyday business of women’s lives." (Wykes, 220) There are so many pictures of women but in an inhumane way, this type of exposure is not the type women need. If anything, this adds onto the problems women already have to combat, and even fuels it. The objectification of women further pads the thought that women are not equal to men; that women are only there to cater to and satisfy men. Not to mention, this adds onto rape culture as well. Women are dressed sexily and are associated with such sexual acts which must mean that any woman dressed in that manner wants to have sex, regardless of whether or not she says no. 

   Not to mention, some of these ads are damaging men as well. "Males cannot love themselves in patriarchal culture if their very self-definition relies on submission to patriarchal rules." (Hooks, 123) The myth that size matters, that your size equates the level of your manliness makes it hard for many males to be okay with their own self image. This culture that has been created by the system of patriarchy is suppressing men as well. We are all conditioned to think that size matters and that women are there for the male's pleasure. When will it all stop? Will we ever be able to put a stop to this? 

Readings:

Wykes, Gunther The Media and Body Image
Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Understanding Patriarchy. 17-33. Print.
Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory                         Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999: 833-44.

Images:

http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/gallery/kate-upton-gq-cover-photo-shoot

http://www.gq.com.au/grooming/gear/tom+ford+comes+out+with+unapologetically+sexy+ad+nsfw+,42341

http://blog.karenhurleydesign.com/post/34516286357/kitkat

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3243665/Can-bikini-clad-women-make-MEN-feel-bad-female-objectification-ads-creates-low-self-esteem-guys.html