Impact
12 years ago
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Advertisements--Lit blog for 2/5
I've noticed before that many ads used sex appeal to sell their products, but Culture Jam and the video Killing Us Softly really got me to analyze them a lot more. I never really noticed before that in many ads that girls are posed more passively and men look strong and dominant. The man is always standing over the girl or has some sort of control over her. Even race plays a part in advertisements. In one ad it showed a girl standing over a black boy. These are things I never would have noticed before but they seem to have a silent message. I also never really analyzed the ads where women are posed as objects. Advertising has turned people into objects. They degrade women in some ads and make it seem like men still dominate and are superior. I will look at ads in a new light now. I was surprised to hear that we see on average 3000 ads every day. I never would have thought it was so high. I am more aware of the ads I see around me now. In the Hook videos I do agree that for transformation to happen you need critical thinking. People need critical thinking to evaluate themselves and the situation and to know that they can do anything anyone else can do. They have to know they can succeed.
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It is strange to think that we see 3,000 ads a day. I also never really thought about it because I feel that ads have become a part of our lives whether we like it or not. It is pretty impossible to ignore the ads surrounding us. I dislike the fact how women are portrayed in ads, also in that they are typically objects or sexual beings that are the eye candy of the man. But on the other hand, if the woman is willing to pose in this way, then it is her own fault. We cannot always blame the people who create the advertisements because every woman has the option to say no.
ReplyDeleteHmm...Do women have the option to say no? Many women like being cast in this way. Sex, as we all know, equals power. Many women feel empowered by their sexual allure...and those of us who don't, spend thousands of dollars on cosmetics, hair stylists, and fashion to obtain this "power." I think the lie being sold to us in ads (and other media, as hooks points out) is that a woman's body is the only way she can obtain "power"
ReplyDeleteI agree with you professor, but I still think that women have the option to say no. There are many other ways that women can gain "power" and respect other than through her body image and quite honestly I don't know how women can feel empowered by their "sexual allure", because most of these women who are in advertisements starve themselves to look a certain way. So even though they are modeling and being sexy, at the end of the day, the men still win because the women had to starve themselves to look a certain way. So I don't really see the empowerment in that.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading Culture Jam and watching the videos in class, I never realized how much ads make women look like objects. My psych teacher in highschool had us work with ads and I realized women are portrayed as objects but the ads shown in the "Killing Us Softly" video with a man having his hands around a woman's neck and others like this shocked me. I feel that the women posing for these ads are the women who have been most affected by the ads because obviously they feel the need to look that way and show it off.
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