Americans have long since depended on a falsified ideology of idealized life referred to as the American dream. The construct of this dream has become more elusive with the emergence of popular cultural advertisements that sell items promoting a highly gendered goal of achieving perfection. In “Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising,” Jack Solomon states that ads are creating a “symbolic association between their products and what is most coveted by the consumer” to draw on the consumer’s desire to outwardly express high social standing (544). The American dream has sold the idea of equality between genders, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds, but advertisements have manipulated this concept entirely through representations …show more content…
This phenomenon suggests that all women are required to remain loyal wives and stay at home mothers who aspire to achieve perfection. In “Mirrors of Masculinity: Representation and Identity in Advertising Images,” Jonathon E. Schroeder and Detlev Zwick claim that “highly abstract connections are made between the models, a lifestyle, and the brand” resulting in a need to associate these products with a specific way of living (25). Instead of simply displaying these luxurious bracelets and handbags, the ad creates an elegant environment through the incorporation of sophisticated items. The women are dressed elegantly in dresses and blouses, adding a conservative element to the ad. The ad presents a rather stereotypical image of the very successful heads-of-household type mothers who have brunch with other elite women in an exclusive circle. Everything from the merchandise they sport to the champagne glasses down to the neatly manicured fingernails provides insight into the class of women presented in this ad. The body language of the women strips the image of the reality element and instead appears to be staged or frozen in time. This directly contributes to the concept of the gendered American dream that urges women to put up a picture-perfect image for the world to see. Instead of embracing individual struggle and realities, the American dream encourages women to live out a fabricated
Evidently, these two guys know how to sell something. When I see an advertisement, I see them like Solomon and Charles did. They are like businessmen trying to sell a product. The advertisements aren't just selling a product to Americans, but rather the advertisements are directed towards a targeted market. For example; a commercial that wants to sell a regular beer will show normal guys hanging out. They could be at a bar, fishing, or having a picnic. The people will be having a fun time. The targeted market would be mostly men because in the commercials it's mostly men with the exception of a beautiful woman here and there.
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?
Advertising is so prominent in American culture, and even the world at large, that this media form becomes reflective of the values and expectations of the nation’s society at large.
Advertising, whether criticized or celebrated, is undeniably a strong force in American society. Portrayals and Images of women have long been used to sell in published advertisements. However, how they have been used has changed enormously throughout the decades. Women have fought to find a lasting and prominent position in their society. Only in the span of twenty years, between 1900’s and 1920’s, the roles of women changed dramatically here in United States.
Our society is a complex collection of institutions, status, roles, values, and norms, and the best way to understand and learn about them is through the use of cultural artifacts. These can be anything from music to art to literature, or as in the example of this discussion, the modern day creation of advertisement as seen in women's magazines. As Homo Sapiens moved from the hunter - gatherer way of life to industrial society , it was necessary to construct a framework for living so that such a concentrated number of people could exist together. This framework as come to consist of a myriad of expectations based on values and norms in the form of roles status and institutions. Desirable behavior is sought by people throughout the country based on how one is brought up and the expectations one is bombarded with on a daily basis. These expectations are reflected in every part of our culture and are used by people so as to know how to act in any given situation. The main examples are: the family, education, health and medicine, religion, and the law. I have found that certain mediums reflect the expected roles in these institutions better than others. I originally focused on gender roles as a depiction of stereotypical behavior as reflected by advertising especially the portrayal of women, but I discovered that there were other stereotypes being perpetuated as well that were just as institutionalized if not just simply less noticed or studied. Therefore, although this argument will focus on the depiction of females and the female role in advertising. It will also mention the general use of American values , norms, and institutions to influence consumers.
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...
It is believed that there is a tension between social classes in America. Typically, people of lower classes choose to imitate those of higher social status. As a result, advertisers have a tendency to take advantage of this tension in order to profit from people of the lower and middle classes. In “The American Upper Class,” G. William Domhoff says that “exhibiting high social status… is a way of exercising power” (Domhoff p.34),” which is something important to all social classes. According to Judi Puritz Cook, author of “Consumer Culture…Sales Discourse,” advertisements in print as well as in visual media seem to create “the promise of status mobility through consumption (Cook p.373).” In the article, Puritz explains how television programs on channels such as the Home Shopping Network are examples of how the media exploits the anxiety caused by social standing.
Through the mass media, our patriarchal capitalist system has created the illusion that Women’s Liberation has progressed when gender equality policies were introduced, such as “equal salaries” and the right to vote. It has convinced the common North American woman to believe that she is not socially restrained, that her accomplishments can be unlimited, that she is in total charge and control of her life. However, conventional norms veiled deeply and expressed indirectly in the mass media continue to dictate and subdue lives according to gender. Seemingly innocent short TV ads, still remarkably traditional in depicting gender roles, condone and reinforce gender oppression. This paper will focus on the underlying imagery of several advertisements, which help perpetuate gender oppression and reinforce the patriarchial system.
In Solomon’s words, “American dream encourages the desire to ‘arrive,’ to vault above the mass, it also fosters a desire to be popular, to ‘belong’.” (169) Advertiser whose “ads are aimed at a broader market” (169) are utilizing such kind of human mentality. For instance, Nike is a famous clothes brand to almost everybody. In its advertisement, there are always people in different genders, races and ages wearing Nike’s products running on streets, on riversides or in parks. Through its advertisement, Nike is trying to convey consumers that everyone is using Nike’s products, and you should be one of them. People want to fit in as part of most people, so they buy Nike’s products. Nike’s advertised products make people belong to it. If I were going to buy a new pair of shorts for running, I would consider of buying a pair of Nike shorts because it seems that so many people wear Nike shorts and I want to keep the same with them. People buy those advertised products to increase their senses of belonging, but they are losing their individuality at the same time. Despite many advertised products could decrease the individuality, some of them indeed make people more of
First off, advertisements aim to deceive United States inhabitants into thinking that they can move up the social stratification. Jack Solomon, a semiotician depicts, “Americans, dream of rising above the crowd, of attaining a social summit beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. And therein lies the paradox” (Solomon 402). This connotes that, without inequality there is no such thing as being at the top in terms of social status. Advertisements create the falsehood that in America anyone can make their dreams as far as owning luxurious goods to be considered part of the upper class, a reality. The Chevrolet advertisement printed in red, white, and blue ink with the word “HOPE” printed under the image of
Advertising in American culture has taken on the very interesting character of representing our culture as a whole. Take this Calvin Klein ad for example. It shows the sexualization of not only the Calvin Klein clothing, but the female gender overall. It displays the socially constructed body, or the ideal body for women and girls in America. Using celebrities in the upper class to sell clothing, this advertisement makes owning a product an indication of your class in the American class system. In addition to this, feminism, and how that impacts potential consumer’s perception of the product, is also implicated. Advertisements are powerful things that can convey specific messages without using words or printed text, and can be conveyed in the split-second that it takes to see the image. In this way, the public underestimates how much they are influenced by what they see on television, in magazines, or online.
In the essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” author and philosopher Susan Bordo discusses the history and current state of male representation in advertisements. While using her feminist background, Bordo compares and contrasts the aspects of how men and women are portrayed in the public eye. She claims that there has been a paradigm shift the media with the theory that not just women are being objectified in the public eye, but also men too. Since the mid-1970s, with the introduction of Calvin Klein commercials, men have started to become more dehumanized and regarded as sex symbols. In a similar fashion to how Bordo describes gender, race plays a similar role in the media. People of all different ethnicities and cultures are being categorized into an oversimplified and usually unfair image by the media over basic characteristics.
Side-by-side are two advertisements, each showing a picture of a car and two family members. The ads demonstrate the amount of power allotted to women in the times they were made. The differences in these ads far outweigh the similarities. The ad from a 1954 Good Housekeeping shows a woman being reprimanded by her husband for wrecking their car. The otherfrom a 2003 Redbookshows a wife and mother holding her daughter with one hand and an umbrella with the other. One woman is ignorant, irresponsible, incapable, and not in control; the other is competent, responsible, and in control. The evolution of advertising reflects the changes that have taken place in the way American society views women. The ads use body image, body language, and text to encapsulate the stereotypical women of each era; in the 50's, women needed to be controlled, but now women can be in control.
image of themselves in real life. They are almost computer-generated women like in the movie Simone. Indeed, with the technology we have now, advertisers can transform a product into perfection, at the same time, misleading the consumer into seeing it as “real”, and thus permanently providing impossible standards (Ingham). More and more women are becoming dissatisfied with themselves trying to be this fantasy person created by the men in our society. This distorted view of reality, portrayed by advertisemen...
Cohan overall leaves a strong impression on the reader that change in women’s advertising is very important and necessary. He effectively shows that women’s advertising is often unethical and ultimately needs to stop degrading women and move to more positive ways of advertising. Although, upon digging deeper in to Cohan’s specific claims on idealized imagery advertising, a gap emerges. Cohan calls the women in the ads who have been idealized “perfect” “ideal”, women that the “average women” will never be able to look like/be (327), but in all actuality, how can advertisements, or anyone for that matter, define what is “perfect”, “average”, “pretty”, “ugly”? Cohan overlooks this phenomenon, of the ever evolving, never definable term: beauty, therefore creating a need for deeper analysis.