Try Not to Ads Anything to My Body

“What in Gods name am I looking at?” “What the hell is the purpose of these ads?” “Why in the world do I feel somewhat humiliated and dehumanized?”

These are the questions I’ve been asking myself every time I see an ad. Wherever I go, I see an ad and I start analyzing it. Why are the models posed like this? Why are the male models fully clothed than the female models? What are they wearing? Why does he/she look so flawless and young? Why are the female models buttocks turned all the way to the camera? Why is it so focused on their ass? Their boobs? Why do they look so perfect? Why? The reason why is “..advertising gives us a constant stream of representation of perfect and of course unattainable female beauty.” (57, Cortese) Which is true, because ads has this effect on our subconscious to believe that whatever is published is considered the ideal body.

Why do ads do this to us? Why do they always make us feel some sort of low self-worth. To be honest, this is completely wrong for advertisements to do, and yet we fall for it every time. "Advertising effects the powerless and the marginal. Especially ethnic minorities and women are seduced into a commodifying system."(75 Cortese) We are so blinded by the fact that advertisements can easily manipulate us, and it has this power over us that makes us feel vulnerable. We give into this crazy industry that can dictate our emotions and motives. "They tell us who we are and who we should be."(121, Kilbourne) We shouldn't allow them to do this to us, but we do because we are fragile individuals that are easily persuaded.

Ads has had this effect on us since we were kids, to the point that kids have been under the influence."The oppressive and draconian images of the ideal or perfect women is harmed nearly continuously into little girls. Adolescents and women by the unrealistic representation in advertising." (56 Cortese) These images have appeared all over our today's culture that it is deemed 'okay', or 'normal' to publish images, like the one above, all over the media. In addition, certain companies, like for example American Apparel, begin to get their model's younger. The picture above this paragraph is one of images that is posted on American Apparel's website.

These advertisements not only effects our mind set of what is ideally perfect of a body but they have over sexualized women bodies. They have dehumanized us, women, and portraying us as sex objects. We have become to use to this that overtime ads have made it seem acceptable to dehumanize women. We accept this, which is unacceptable.
"One of the things we are angriest about, because the strategy has been so successful, is the way we have become alienate from our own bodies. We have learned to despise. "(11-12, Douglas) This what these ads have done to us,which is fixating our minds to hate our own body. To not accept our body for its true beauty, for its true potential. [The]“..attempts by girls and women to beautify themselves their bodies, hair, and faces go way back.”(76, Cortese) This is true because this dates back during the time of when the sitcom, Gidget, existed back in the 1960's.

"Women are angry at the media, because a full twenty years after the women's movement, diet soda companies, women's magazines, and Sports Illustrated "swimsuit issue" still bombard us with smiling air-brushed, anorexic, and compliant women whose message seems to be "Shut up, get a face-lift, and stop eating."(11,Douglas) More women today should be upset with the media on how they portray us. This is why certain ads, like American Apparel or Calvin Klein, need to stop picturing women as objects. Ads shouldn't be allowed to have women looking like they are opened to being taken advantage of, or looking to be raped. For example, check out the Calvin Klein video that I have linked below this paragraph. Ads should make women look independent individuals who should be taken seriously. Maybe clothe these models with a more of a classy, sophisticated look that can still make women look beautiful. Certain clothing stores shouldn't having to show women's entire top half of their body to the wide web to make it seem acceptable. This even goes for men as well, because even men begin to feel self conscious about themselves if they don't have that 6-pack body.

I feel like advertising can have a strong effect on everyone, but it needs to be used correctly. It needs to be attacked from a different approach that everyone feels accepted in their own skin without having to objectify or dehumanize ones body.

Work Cited:

Cortese, Anthony Joseph Paul. Provocateur: Images Of Women And Minorities In Advertising. Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008. Print.

Kilbourne, Jean. “Beauty… and the Beast of Advertising.” Reading Culture. Ed. Diana George and John Trimbur. 4th ed. New York: Longman, 2001. 121-125.

Susan J. Douglas - Where the girls are: Growing up female with the mass media. New York. Times Books. 1995

Final Project on Video Game Sexism

         For the final project, I will create an informational video regarding sexism in the video game industry.  There have been cases in which video games were blamed for increasing violence among children and young adults.  More often than not video games are blamed for being too violent; they are not being critiqued as strongly for being sexist. If it is possible for video game to increase violence among individuals then wouldn't video games also be able to also influence our perceptions of gender as well? Gamers spend many hours absorbing what they are playing, its hard to believe that when the game gets turned off they forget about everything they saw.  

Art from GTA5 when loading, pretty disrespectful.

          There are tons of games that have sexism, the most common being Grand Theft Auto 5. When we think of sexism in video games we usually think about GTA5, for picking up hookers, banging them, and then killing them to take your money back. This game seems to support misogyny because there are no positive images of woman.  There are plenty of other games that also treat women with disrespect; sexualized violence includes beating, raping and killing women. In the video games you can do whatever you want and get away with it. Video games should have these actions come with consequences because some people might be under the impression that this type of behavior easy to get away with. Someone may even think that treating women as they are in video games might seem normal.

Princess Peach- Mario- Popular Damsel in Distress

In the video game industry there are lots of examples of sexism that don't revolve around sexual violence. One common role of women that persist in games is the role of the "damsel in distress", as seen in the Mario franchise. There is the typical useless female that can’t do anything by herself and she is always asking to be saved by the male protagonist. What is up with game developers using that's as the plot for their game.  If women are not the damsel in distress, then they tend to be overly sexualized. In fighting games particularly this is a phenomenon that holds true most of the time. The animated versions of women tend to have huge breast and minimal or tight clothing. Then we have the rare releases of video games that have a lead female role, but that too, is hyper sexualized to the point where you question if the games is centered on the plot or the fantasies that some gamers have.

Lead Female roles tend to be overly sexualized - Lollipop Chainsaw

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Advertising and the impact it has on body image

"To all the girls that think you're ugly because you're not a size 0, you're the beautiful one," Gaga shared a quote of inspiration on Twitter. "It's society who's ugly."

Lady Gaga on BTW Tour

Lady GaGa has been one of my biggest inspirations since the first time I heard her music on the radio. I was always amazed of her great physique and wondered if this was something done out of choice or because of the industry demanding her to maintain a specific look. However, despite her glamorous thin physique in her early career, in recent months Lady GaGa has gained a noticeable amount of weight and she has been receiving a lot of scrutiny for it. Although this is not the first time she has been attacked by the media because of gaining weight, she knew exactly what to say to shut down all the negative comments surfing the web about her physique. On her website she started a body revolution, inspiring those who looked up to her to accept their bodies, regardless of excess weight, scars and other imperfections. She also added on her website "Today I join the BODY REVOLUTION. To inspire Bravery. And BREED some m$therf**king COMPASION", she then adds in a later post "Be brave and celebrate with us your 'perceived flaws', as society tells us". She is someone who has not allowed the media to influence her and the way she lives her life, and this is an example that should be employed by many other main stream and influential people, to not sell an artificial and almost unattainable look.

In Beauty and the Beast of Advertising Jil Kilbourne states "Advertising creates a mythical mostly white world in which people are rarely ugly, overweight, poor, struggling, or disabled, either physically or mentally." Imagine a world of no imperfections and that every time you see someone, they've got no wrinkles, blemishes, or scars, and that everything about that person is as Beyonce says in one of her songs - FLAWLESS! The reality is that it is hard to imagine a world where imperfections are not present. Advertising and the effects it has on body image particularly on women has been an alarming issue that dates back for as long as advertising has been around. Women have been programmed to think that how they look has a huge impact on their lives in terms of success and worth.   I would like to agree with the film we saw in class about body image earlier in the semester. Among the many concepts that were brought up, one that resinated with me was the idea that advertising can be compared to religion in how people worship saints and strive to embody them as a religious practice of perfection.  In essence women emulate this idea in the context in which they worship the images shown in the media of the ideal slender, light skin and barbie doll image. Most of the images that girls see at an adolescent age set the platform for how these images will affect them in their adulthood. The following two reading explores the many forms of advertising that have place women on a  platform where she is judged and scrutinized for the way that she looks. "Body Messages and Meanings" and "Hunger as Ideology" by Susan Bordo.  

Figure 1
Lillian Russell
most photographed

Susan Bordo explores advertising and the negative influence it has on society for both men and women, but mostly on women.  In the reading we were presented with various real ads that have been published in the past, she carefully deconstructs them and exposes the subtle messages embedded in them by imposing a false message. In order to explain how much our society has shifted gears in defining what is considered beautiful and accepted, Susan brings up Lillian Russell (figure 1), to help explain the evolution of beauty, she states that this woman was one of the most photographed woman in America. Ms. Russell was admired for her hearty appetite, ample body and doesn't fail to mention that at the height of her popularity she was 200 pounds. So here is where Susan questions what happened to the times when it was accepted and considered beautiful for women to be comfortable with their weight and not feel forced to conform to the ideal skinny model look?


                      Lets explore how the ideal image of beauty has shifted over time.

   

Women portrayed 1900's-1950

    

        

Women Portrayed 1960's - Present

The idea of curved woman being beautiful shifted to not being so attractive after the slim frame supermodel came into the picture, from that point on an emphasis on being skinny and maintaining this image increased, year after year more women were excluded because they did not meet this new standard of beauty. While some women resisted the influence of these images, some fell in the trap and some have spent a fortune on companies that sell products which claim to improve imperfections and promote a healthier and beautiful YOU! The following two campaigns (Victoria Secret and Dove) were placed side by side in effort to expose the demands society places on women.  While Victoria is promoting a "Love my Body" Campaign, Dove created a campaign to include the outsiders who do not fit in this category the "Real Beauty". Many campaigns including those like Victoria Secret tend to teach only one lesson to the viewer, and that is sexy and beautiful can only come in one package. Companies such as Dove, create an environment where all forms of beauty are represented. The problem is that there is a lack of ads that tend to be inclusive. 

Victoria Secret beauty Ad VS. Dove beauty Ad.

The following video is quite disturbing because its a perfect example of society's obsession with being skinny and beautiful and equating that with success and acceptance. The video below video shows women putting themselves through a series of tasks (plastic surgery, cosmetic dentistry, physical training, personal coaching)  in effort to obtain the ideal beauty and  to be accepted by others as one of the contestants confesses "Im afraid nobody else would ever love me".  Women are encouraged to obtain an artificial type of beauty because they believe this will lead them to happiness.

                                  

The constant bombarding of ads that exclude all body types tend to instill a certain belief on women, and in the "Body Messages and Body Meaning" the author mentions the thin commandments that main stream media tends to instill on women:

• if you are not think you are not attractive
• being thin is more important than being healthy
• you must buy clothes, cut your hair, take laxatives, starve yourself, do anything to make yourself look thinner
• Thou shall not eat without feeling guilty
• Thou shall not eat fattening foods without punishing oneself afterwards
• Thou shall count calories and restrict intake accordingly
• What the scale says is the most important thing
• Losing weight is good/Gaining weight is bad
• You can never be too thin
• Being thin and not eating are true signs of will power and success. 

One of our readings also talks about how some celebrities are not the best role models when it comes to fighting off this unattainable image. On more recent news the talk show host Wendy Williams talks about body image and photoshop and bring up a recent controversy surrounding Beyonce.
Recently Beyonce received a lot of criticism over an image she photoshopped in effort to create the infamous thigh gap. Wendy Williams was concerned with how many of her 19 million followers on Instagram are young girls who look up to her and see this image which seems like a regular everyday image posted on Instagram as a reality,  and how many of these girls actually try to achieve this look that not even Beyonce in real life has.

Beyonce Thigh Gap scandal

Other celebrities who have been highly influential in our society who are contributors to this ideal image that they themselves do not even possess are Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Kim Kardashian and Kate Winslet among many others. feel free to click on the following link to see more photos and read about other celebrity enhanced photos.


                       Figure 1                                                                Figure 2

         

Figure 1:

Mariah Carey Performing her new

single from her album. She is placed 

sided by side her edited album cover. 

Figure 2:

Britney Spears side by side enhanced photo of herself 

in her latest music video. 

Referring back to the Lady GaGa example of embracing the natural beauty, more celebrities who are influential and have a large following should be more conscious about the messages they put out in the images they publish of themselves in the media. Images that promote an unhealthy and dangerous lifestyle for many women who look up to them.

Works Cited:

Bordo, Susan. Unbereable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. University of California, 1993.

Kilbourne, Jean, "Beauty and the Beast of Advertising." Media & Values. Diana George & John Trimbur(Eds.), (1999) 

The Pervasiveness of Sexism and Racism in Ad's

A pair of children's books teaches boys how
to be clever and teaches girls
how to be gorgeous. 

Toy Ads are divided, guiding children's
eyes with color and
reiterating gender roles.

Sexism Within Toy Advertisements

Advertisers waste no time implementing sexism within ads. The idea of acceptable behavior has to be introduced at a young age for gender roles to feel like second nature. In toy advertisements, girls are grooming dolls, caring for babies, baking and cleaning, while boys are building, shooting and being commanding. “Along with our parents, the mass media raised us, entertained us, comforted us, deceived us, disciplined us, told us what we could do and told us what we couldn’t.” (Douglas,13) When children see advertisements they are solely focused on the toy; they are unknowingly absorbing the messages that are being conveyed to them on a daily basis.

Once the toy or the game is bought for the child, gender roles are being reiterated each time that the toy is played with. As a child I baked with my easy-bake-oven, I fed my baby- dolls and I styled the hair on My Little Pony’s, Barbie’s and Kenya dolls. I took the appearance of my dolls seriously by constantly changing their clothes and I would play imaginary games like house, school and shopping. I also played with video games and cars but I was fully aware that I was playing with the boys. I was also aware that I had been"invited" by the boys to play “boy games" with them.

Who remembers Dream Phone? A
guessing game for girls age nine and
up, in which the player talks to
different boys on the phone and gathers
clues to find out who has a crush on her.

Barbie is thin and pretty and Ken is her
fit and handsome boyfriend.

Kenya came with "magic lotion" aka
a perm that straightened her hair.

       The content of male attention and body image remain
the same but the images are different; like these
magazine covers. Taylor Swift on Teen Vogue and
Glamour and Pink on Seventeen and Cosmopolitan.

Sexist Advertisements Effect Adolescent Girls

Once a girl enters adolescence the work has already been done. Through years of toys, games, film, music and television, teenage girls are already aware that they are to value their appearance. There are advertisements that are targeted specifically at teenage girls, such as ads in a magazine like Seventeen or Teen Vouge, but most of the time teenage girls are subjected to ads that target adult women. This is very dangerous because these advertisements use sex to convey the message that women only value their appearance for the approval and for the acceptance of men.  A teenager looking at an ad for women may feel that in real life she has to display her sexuality to be accepted by boys.

The teenage girl whose own body is experiencing a biological change may develop an unhealthy attitude about her appearance because she is constantly comparing herself to the women that she see’s in ads. Comparing herself to the photoshopped women that do not even look like themselves. “They are in the process of learning their values and roles and developing their self-concepts. Most teenagers are sensitive to peer pressure and find it difficult to resist or even question the dominant cultural messages perpetuated and reinforced by the media.” (Kilbourne, 122)  

  
                                                                                                                              
"Adolescents are particularly vulnerable, however, because they are new and inexperienced consumers and are the prime targets of many advertisements.” (Kilbourne, 121)

Teenage girls are bombarded with 
ads that tell them that they need to be thin, beautiful and sexy. Imagine what these images can do to a young girl that does not look like what she sees in ads. Not only will she feel insecure and insufficient but she will also feel unworthy of being accepted as she is. She will feel that if she is not a reflection of the images around her, then she has to physically change her self for love and attention. “Cultivating a thinner body offers some hope of control and success to a young woman with a poor self-image and overwhelming personal problems that have no easy solutions.” (Kilbourne, 132). 

Eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating are an unintended effect of advertisements. There are many factors that contribute to eating disorders but unhealthy standards of what a beautiful woman is supposed to embody causes young girls to feel that they can not physically measure up to those standards.“Advertising does not cause eating problems, of course, anymore than it causes alcoholism. However, these images certainly contribute to the body-hatred so many young women feel and to some of the resulting eating problems…Advertising does promote abusive and abnormal attitudes about eating, drinking and thinness. It thus provides fertile soil for these obsessions to take root in and creates a climate of denial in which theses diseases flourish.” (Kilbourne,135)

I heard about thinspo about a year ago. Thinspo's inspire girls to stay thin. Check out this thinspo tumblr in the link below
http://get-thinspo.tumblr.com

Women Spend to Gain

Advertisements use “flaws” as an effective way to sell products. Reiterating to women that they are never enough and that they need “that” particular product to fill the void. I think that unconsciously women buy products so that they can feel accepted by men. Women adorn themselves with men in mind. Knowing that they will be surveyed by men,they dress accordingly for attention and spend money trying to look like the unattainable images in advertisements. “Women are buying their gender identity but it remains described in accordance with the masculinity at the heart of patriarchy and the corporate power of the beauty industry.”(Gunter and Wykes, 211)

Racism in Advertisements

Model Ondria Hardin in blackface as"African Queen" for
Numero magazine in 2013

Does it make any sense to use brown makeup on a white model “blackface” to sell products when there is 
an array of black models that already have naturally brown skin? White models are the majority within the fashion industry; this is reflected on runways and in magazines,this is also a direct correlation of white designers not having black people in mind when they make their products. Simply put, white designers do not want black people buying their clothes. Yet, blackface is used in some advertisements when a “black” or an “African” theme is being used for a magazine spread.This is very twisted and racist. “Blackface is one of the most pernicious and painful stereotypes about people of African descent. Like old blackface minstrelsy, when you can't find blacks you think are worthy to play the part, you simply blacken up white actors or, in this case, models. The message: Real black people aren't good enough at being themselves.” (Sawyer). There are also instances in which black models faces are drastically darkened with makeup for ads. Again this is racist. Advertisers want the dark skin color of a black person but they may not want the particular features of that person, so the “acceptable” features are darkened to go along with the theme of the ad. “For very complex reasons, a sort of racist ‘common sense’ has become pervasive in our society. And the media frequently work from this common sense, taking it as their base-line without questioning it”(Hall,8)

“ Since (like gender) race appears to be ‘given’ by Nature, racism is one of the most profoundly ‘naturalised’ of existing ideologies.” (Hall, 9) There are ads that use skin color to reiterate messages of good and bad meaning white and black. The color black represents things that are bad, evil and dirty while the color white represents things that are good, pure and clean. There are also ads that sexualize the skin of black people to sell products.

A Dove soap Ad uses a black woman as the before representation 
and a white woman as the after representation.

An American Apparel Ad darkens a black model's body "Sweeter than candy. Better than cake"

Alternative Advertising Strategies

The female body undoubtedly needs to stop being used as a means to sell products and as a way to sell women a false sense of self. Realistically, this is very difficult to counteract because sexism is so engrained within our culture. In most cases, ads that attempt to go against traditional advertisement ultimately end up doing the very same thing. They use the female body to sell an idea and to essentially sell products. “Girls who want to escape the stereotypes are viewed with glee by advertisers, who rush to offer them, as always, power via products.” (Kilbourne,150). “The solution to any problem always has to be a product. Change, transformation, is thus inevitably shallow and moronic, rather than meaningful and transcendent.” (Kilbourne,153) I honestly do not know if it is possible to have alternative ads without those ads trying to pose an agenda onto people thus trying to sell products. Roll reversal in some alternative ad's are also ineffective. Simply putting women in a sexist position toward men and labeling it as power does not deal with the issues of traditional advertisements.

Swedish toy Ad's show boys and girls playing together.

This is why it is significant that alternative advertising begin in the early stages; when children are learning gender roles. Instead of showing boys and girls separately in toy commercials displaying gender specific characteristics, perhaps, it would be effective to show boys and girls playing together. There is nothing wrong with being loud, sensitive, aggressive, adventurous, nurturing,and loving. However, it is dangerous to convey to children that only boys can be masculine and only girls can be feminine. Boys and girls should have a healthy balance of both masculinity and femininity, they should be able to display their emotions without feeling like they are doing something wrong.



Works Cited:

Douglas, Susan J. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with Mass Media. New York: Random House, 1995

Gunter, Barrie and Wykes, Maggie. The Media and Body Images: If Looks Could Kill. London: SAGE, 2005

Hall, Stuart. The White of their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1981

Kilbourne, Jean."The More You Subtract the More You Add" Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising. New York: The Free Press, 1999 

Beauty and the Beast of Advertising. Los Angeles: The Center  of Media and Values, 1989                                   

Sawyer, Mark.(2009, October 14) "Commentary: Blackface is Never Okay" retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/14/sawyer.blackface/

Possible Paper Idea

 In Susan J. Douglas' Where the Girls Are, she cites her accounts, injustices and the
affects of feminism inside and out of the media. The war on women in the media, Douglas' thoughtful observation on the exclusion of Blacks regarding equality, and the television role models given to young girls helps to define Where the Girls Are as one of the most important books in feminist literature.

 Douglas states, "The war that has been raging in the media is not a simplistic war against women but a complex struggle between feminism and antifeminism that has reflected, reinforced, and exaggerated our culture's ambivalence about women's roles for over thirty-five years. (pp. 12-13)" 

Those who believe that the media spearheaded the campaign for soiling the reputation of the feminist may be correct, but it was women who made their agenda a success. My generation (Generation X), like Douglas', was taught that feminists were angry, unattractive women who couldn't get dates; that women should never worry about the way a man looked when seeking a mate (the total opposite of what boys are taught); and women are incomplete without men. Generation X's ideas on women and antifeminists would not be complete if we omitted their definition of a "good girl": virgins, quiet women and never being sure of one's self. The notion that the media has almost incited an allegorical riot between feminism and antifeminism as Douglas suggests is not far-fetched. Generation X got their indoctrinations (I was an exception, for my mother was a feminist) from their families and

images in the media. As the "unattractive," unhappy feminists were still making a little headway in their mission--creating sexual harassment laws and addressing domestic violence-- the "attractive," scantily-dressed antifeminists were appearing in rock and rap videos hanging all over men like Christmas-tree ornaments and happy because they were the chosen ones (so it seemed). Rap was just taking off in my adolescence and my male counterparts quickly latched on to 2 Live Crew and NWA (Niggas W/ Attitudes), calling women bitches and hoes. But, Gloria Steinem, mother of the feminist movement, never declared women shouldn't have the right to appear half naked in music videos. And it didn't mean the women that were allowing Dr. Dre to smack their asses on MTV and BET were not feminists. What it did indicate was that I had no other choice but to take my mother's advice and be a Black woman the way I wanted to be and not by anyone else's definition as to what that was supposed to be. But, would that cause me to forfeit the right to be protected?

A very honest observation by Douglas was her description of the race-biasness on education: "...many of our elders were fighting for improved educational systems, including greater access to a college education, the understanding was that they were pushing these reforms not just for boys but for all kids--well, white kids, anyway. (pp. 22-23)" It was so refreshing to hear a White woman finally acknowledge that when Americans (particularly White Americans) say they want all to succeed, they usually just mean people who look like them. The feminist movement prides themselves on fighting for the equality of all women, but some believed the movement did not address Black women, many of them [Black women] being maids or holding down other low-paying jobs. I don't believe Steinem's agenda included Black women either. It was confirmed for me when in 2012, online publication, The Onion, called 9 year-old Academy Award-nominated Black actress, Quvenzhane Wallis a "cunt." Steinem did not call for an apology from The Onion, but a few months later expressed her outrage over the media calling Kim Kardashian "fat." 

Women in Advertising

     As everybody knows, the main purpose of advertising is to try and sell the consumer a  product. Advertising is everywhere regardless of where you live. You step out the door and you’re bombarded by ads on billboards, train platforms, television, watching a video, or on almost any social media platform. It has become harder and harder to get away from all these ads and from when you are first exposed to them until now you’ve found it best to just skip the channel and ignore them. At the same, through experience and understanding, there comes the realization that there is something completely wrong about these ads and apparently they aren’t just trying to sell you a product.  As Jean Kilbourne states in “Beauty and the Beast of Advertising”, “They sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy. They tell us who we are and who we should be. Sometimes they sell addictions”. These ads also contribute to the sexism and body image issues that are rampant in our society.

No pores, No wrinkles, Not humanely possible

    All these images we encounter, whether in glossy magazines or on billboards,of flawless and thin women have this major impact because of the culture we live in today, as Kilbourne states in her article "The More You Subtract the More You Add", which influences us into remaking "our bodies into perfect commodities". Many of these ads also do a magnificent job of exploiting women and their insecurities. There are countless numbers of ads for makeup and anti- aging products and of course most these ads not only try to sell you their product but also the idea of unattainable perfection. You can’t and won’t ever be perfect but if you buy a pore minimizer cream or this anti- aging serum then you’ll get close to perfection, because apparently that is who women should be, a pore less, young, flawless entity.

    

    When advertisers only use one type of body in their ads it creates insecurity and disillusions. Women become insecure about themselves because they don’t look like these models and they become desperate to conform to this ideal. They begin to ago through great lengths to change themselves, some choose plastic surgery and others choose more drastic measures. As Kilbourne states, women begin to view their “face as mask and body as object, things separate and more important than real self”, they are always in search of improvement, and are made to feel ashamed of herself. These images also affect men who become disillusioned by these perfect women in ads and begin to judge women they know in real life.

    Advertisers also do a wonderful job of exploiting the female body got their gain. They constantly use naked models in their advertisements to sell their products, sometimes with the product not actually present in their ads. There are countless number of cologne and perfume ads with models just barely dressed advertising for the fragrance as seen in numerous Calvin Klein cologne ads.

      

As a consumer I want advertisers to know that the strategies they use in advertising isn’t in anyway appealing. Using woman to sell their products by objectifying and humiliating them is in no way attracting me as a consumer. Instead of relying on disgusting advertising to attract consumers, advertisers should pay attention to not only the white heterosexual male but also to everyone else in the world, including women. In order to sell me a product, I need to first be represented in these ads. It would be best to see women of all shapes,sizes, ethnicities, and all flawed because that is who we are.



Work Cited

Kilbourne, Jean. Beauty and the Beast of Advertising.
Killbourne, Jean. "The More You Subtract, the More You Add Cutting Girls Down to Size." The More You Subtract, the More You Add Cutting Girls Down to Size (1999): 1-15. Killbourne Copyright.