2016
In the article, “Men’s Men and Women’s women,” Steve Craig discusses how advertisers tend to divide their advertisements into two major kinds, one targeted at male consumers and the other directed towards the female consumers. Television programming is gendered by creating advertisements with considering their target audience needs and to give pleasure to their fantasies. Advertisers concentrate their budgets on those programs which the target audience is most likely to view. Craig additionally dissects some of the advertisements to exhibit the distinction of gender representation by the society. Through analyzing commercials, Craig proposes that pop culture strengthens male and in addition white superiority. In response to Craig’s
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Craig’s article support traditional social values of men having power over women. Females are considered one of the minorities that popular culture pretends to defend, while, in reality, it does not. For instance, the “Weight Watchers commercial”, which suggests a way to lose weight for females, depicts that the only tool for a woman to keep her man is her body. According to Craig, “woman’s her need for an attractive body is her need to maintain her husband's interest and maintain her family's unity and security”(197). Such a need implants a fear inside a female of losing her man had her body becomes unattractive. Additionally, a woman conveys the obligation of keeping her family bound together and safe by taking care of her shape. This places a huge pressure on the shoulders of women since they would be uncertain that an adjustment in their physical wellness could potentially prompt family issues, for example, the husband relinquishing the wife for another woman. In this commercial, the female is characterized as an extremely work creature without a male. She endures to keep her man while he exploits any inconsequential reason, for example, his wife developing an unattractive body, to relinquish her. This shows the predominance of men and the accommodation of women. On the other hand, in the women’s ads as the …show more content…
The white race has higher chances to occupy prominent positions as well as be considered for different opportunities than people of color. For example, the author mentions that the women presented as “Men's women are portrayed as physically attractive, slim, and usually young and white, frequently blonde, and almost always dressed in revealing clothing” (Craig 195). This demonstrates that pop culture does not promote the values of equality. The promoters hold the estimations of beauty strictly by the color of the skin. They do not depict other nations can women as alluring as the white once. Women are usually attractive the most to white men. For example, the Acura Integra commercial they all are white men. Such evidence suggest that pop culture safeguards the traditional beliefs of other nations being generally inferior to white people. Pop culture, in this manner, oppresses the people of color instead of promoting their right to be treated equally, as seen by evidence provided by Craig’s analyses of
In this paper I argue that self-objectification is created and perpetuated by the mass media through the critiquing of mainstream films and television shows: Clueless and Gossip Girl. These forms of media glorify the dominant culture’s forms of capital that produce the thin, white, rich, feminine female protagonist. I will analyze how mainstream white male producers prioritize the white narrative and exclude girls of color from mainstream media through the internalization of the thin white image.
Today’s commercials cloud the viewers’ brains with meaningless ritzy camera angles and beautiful models to divert viewers from the true meaning of the commercials. The advertisers just want consumers to spend all of their hard-earned money on their brand of products. The “Pepsi” and “Heineken” commercials are perfect examples of what Dave Barry is trying to point out in his essay, “Red, White and Beer.” He emphasizes that commercial advertisements need to make viewers think that by choosing their brands of products, viewers are helping out American society. As Rita Dove’s essay “Loose Ends” argues, people prefer this fantasy of television to the reality of their own lives. Because viewers prefer fantasy to reality, they become fixated on the fantasy, and according to Marie Winn in “Television Addiction,” this can ultimately lead to a serious addiction to television. But, one must admit that the clever tactics of the commercial advertisers are beyond compare. Who would have thought the half naked-blondes holding soda cans and American men refusing commitment would have caught viewers’ attention?
Men and women both drive cars, it’s a simple necessity to be able go to work for most people, however, from the commercials on television, one would assume that men are the primary purchasers of cars. In Steve Craig’s essay, Men’s Men and Women’s Women, he analyzes four commercials to illustrate how advertisers strategically targets the viewers. Craig argues that advertisers will grasp the attention of the viewer by the gender ideals that both men and women have of each other. Not only do advertisers pick a target audience demographic, but they also will target the audience at specific time to air their commercials. By analyzing an Audi and Bud Light commercial, one can see that Craig arguments are true to an extent but it appears that commercials have gone from an idealized world to a more realistic and relatable stance. for are still [true, however it seems that commercials may have altered to appear more realistic.] [relevant to an extent. This is to say, it appears that advertisers may have altered their commercial tactics. ]
Professors Carrie Packwood and Debra Merskin, authors of the essay “Having It His Way: The Construction of Masculinity in Fast-Food Advertising”, repudiate the stereotypical macho behaviors that are used in several commercials to build a reputation for men while women are used as objects. Media use this stereotype to sell nearly every product; being fast food, beer, and cars on top of the list. Furthermore, Packwood and Merskin claim that advertisement present men, compared to women, as superior individuals with total freedom who see women as prizes. The perfect macho type is a strong resource to sell beer; the Tui beer commercial “Temptations can be dangerous, stay focused” applied this stereotype, where men are on the spotlight and women
A person can be identified by many different characteristics such as, age, ethnicity, sex and gender. Although many people see sex and gender as meaning the same thing, they are very different. Sex is the anatomy of an individual 's reproductive system which refers to the biological and physiological characteristics of a male or female, while gender refers to masculine or feminine and the behaviors, roles, expectations and activities in society. The majority of people conform to gender roles very early on, but sometimes the line blurs between femininity and masculinity. Susan Bordo is an author who points out the cultural stereotypes about gender in her piece “Hunger as Ideology”. In this piece she analyzes advertisements from the Victorian
The documentary Killing Us Softly 4 discusses and examines the role of women in advertisements and the effects of the ads throughout history. The film begins by inspecting a variety of old ads. The speaker, Jean Kilbourne, then discusses and dissects each ad describing the messages of the advertisements and the subliminal meanings they evoke. The commercials from the past and now differ in some respects but they still suggest the same messages. These messages include but are not limited to the following: women are sexual objects, physical appearance is everything, and women are naturally inferior then men. Kilbourne discusses that because individuals are surrounded by media and advertisements everywhere they go, that these messages become real attitudes and mindsets in men and women. Women believe they must achieve a level of beauty similar to models they see in magazines and television commercials. On the other hand, men expect real women to have the same characteristics and look as beautiful as the women pictured in ads. However, even though women may diet and exercise, the reality...
Alcohol. Obesity. Violence. For kids today in the United States, these are only a few of the problems linked to the child-targeted mass media, especially the multi- million dollar business—television commercials in children’s programming. With the disappearance of a TV-free environment, a typical American kid sees about 40,000 television advertisements each year, most of which are for soda, candy, video games, fast food and their free toys. In order to collect some information, I sat down on a Saturday morning on July 16, 2004, and recorded several kids’ TV ads for further analysis. Needless to say, the results were quite shocking—aside from the obvious, I also noticed that most ads featured active and aggressive boys while the presence of girls was rarely to be seen. Being a girl myself, I felt the need to take a close look at such inequality. I began to wonder if commercialism has overlooked the importance of gender issues, which would then create negative impacts on children by sending out harmful hidden messages. For example, these ads can promote a polarization of gender roles that portray the sexes in stereotypical and traditional ways, which will unconsciously affect young viewers’ attitudes and values. In his article written in 1988, “What Are TV Ads Selling to Children,” John J. O’Connor asserts, “Things haven’t changed much in the television business of children’s merchandising, and some aspects of the scene are even more appalling.” Indeed, though not as prevalent as in earlier years, TV commercials aimed at kids still contain underlying themes such as sexism that’s extremely harmful to the development of the youth.
American’s and people in general are an audience targeted for various commodities, advertising being a major contributor. The world of advertising has become a multiplex science, as mentioned in “What We Are to advertisers,” Twitchell divides consumers into 8 categories and Craig, in “Men’s Men and Women’s Women,” concludes there are specific times of day for advertisements to be displayed to reach specific audiences. “Mass production means mass marketing, and mass marketing means the creation of mass stereotypes,” claims Twitchell. These stereotypes of men, women, and humans in general are how advertiser’s reach their targeted audiences.
Wolf argues that because women are increasingly attaining equal rights to men; such as voting, education, money and reproductive power they are challenging the historical power dynamics that enforce patriarchal dominance. As a result, she argues that the ‘beauty myth’ is the “last one remaining of the old feminine ideologies that still has the power to control those women”(1990:4). She comments further “a culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one”
commercial, magazines, books, and flyers to symbolize growth and sway viewers that life is well and full of great moments spent with anyone of their choosing. In today’s society, all different races are starting to come together and get along. For example “The purpose of this study is to analyze the portrayals of White children and African American, Hispanic, Native American and Asian (AHANA) children in television commercials in children’s programming. For the purposes of this study, skin tone and facial features were used as determinants of race” (Larson, 2002). At an early age, children were exposed to interracial relationships. Demott uses contrast by describing situations where people put up a front about interracial relationships being real while also giving their selves away. There are a lot of instances that reveal exactly what an advertisement or television show want its watchers to observe too. Behind much of the entertainments job, they do their best at getting into the viewer’s head to make them believe these can possibly be the life we
Bordo’s essay shows the way that women are constantly being bombarded with commercials. Advertisements portray the idea that you are what society envisions you being, if you don’t make a certain choice regarding to the kinds of food you eat, and the amount of food you eat. They say that if you don’t eat a certain kind of cereal, that you will be fat, or that you look unattractive eating that thick, burger, and instead, you should have some
The media intents on trying at times not to be bias or favorable but when prompted to in accordance to time figure, “…gender and race often interact in how people are portrayed in the media” (Hazell and Clarke 9). With time it has been shown that the implications of mediated ideologies have improved but can still be portrayed as one ideal if one happens to take a closer look. In the early 1900’s, “Colfax and Sternberg found that in 54% of the magazine ads, Black people were portrayed in lower status occupations, ...
In Gender Advertisements, Goffman analysed the ways in which popular media constructs masculinity and femininity through looking at more than 500 advertisements. Goffman’s studies showed a clear contrast in the ways in which both men and women are presented to society. Generally, women held lower gazes whilst men looked straight on; men were strong in their grip whilst women were lighter and more delicate; women were more melodramatic whilst men were stoic and controlled etc. Overall, Goffman argued that the relationship between men and women was presented as a parent-child relationship – men are powerful whilst women represent subordination (Goffman,
“Advertisements are deeply woven into the fabric of Western Culture, drawing on and reinforcing commonly held perceptions and beliefs” of gender and sexuality stereotypes. They have a strong role in shaping society by reflecting, reinforcing and perpetuating traditional societal values and attitudes towards gender roles and identities. The visual images displayed in advertisements are “often absorbed into peoples learned expectation of individuals, comprising various groups, and therefore have the ability to sway individuals perceptions of and interactions with others” . These stereotypical representations of men and women depicted in advertisements invoke gender identities and reinforce societal values and attitudes towards gender roles. Renowned Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman stated that the stereotypical portrayal of gender “insinuates its way into our collective cultural consciousness, even our individual psyches, normalising certain traits associated with masculinity and femininity, men and women, and impacting upon how we frame and define gender and sexual difference in contemporary consumer culture” . This opinion reinforces the notion that the visual images utilised in advertisements reinforce traditional gender and sexuality stereotypes through the depiction of characteristics traditionally associated with masculinity and femininity.
Curry and Clarke’s article believe in a strategy called “visual literacy” which develops women and men’s roles in advertisements (1983: 365). Advertisements are considered a part of mass media and communications, which influence an audience and impact society as a whole. Audiences quickly begin to rely on messages sent through advertisements and can create ideologies of women and men. These messages not only are extremely persuasive, but they additionally are effective in product consumption in the media (Curry and Clarke 1983: