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To say that women have been exploited in the media would be a colossal understatement to say the least. For decades, women have been portrayed as less than their full potential due to the media and how the public displays them and views them as individuals. Most people state that sex sells, but what they really mean is that sexy WOMEN sell. We all know the stereotypes; the sexy superdome, the sex kitten, the nasty little corporate leader.
Whatever the role, television, film and popular Gaines are full of images of women and girls who are usually white, disgustingly thin, and have more makeup on then they need. Finding advertisement that exploits women is a dime a dozen. One could spend hours looking at all the disgusting images plastered all over the internet, or someone could even look through their favorite fashion magazine and find themselves not looking at the clothes, but looking at the women and being sickened.
A fairly popular way of showing off “beautiful” women in advertising is sticking them in trunks of expensive high roller cars. For instance, when Jimmy Coho came out with an advertising for a suit in his ad there was four dead women in the trunk of his car. Their legs sticking out and hanging over the bumper of his old fashioned and high faulting black Cadillac. (Instill 2006) Could someone explain how exactly dead women are related to suits? Furthermore, in the advertisement, he used “special quest” Quince Jones to help promote dead women… Or suits.
As he sits on the back of the car with a very serious, emotionless look on his face, it is really difficult to see exactly what the ad is bout, if it did not have the word “suits” actually displayed on the advertisement itself. Speaking of being unsure about what an ad is trying to accomplish, it is often a more common occurrence than not. Everywhere there are ads displayed women in vulnerable positions, dead, beaten and battered or being surrounded by a bunch of guys, holding them down. Yet the ads are selling clothing items, perfumes or sometimes Just the brand itself.
If it was not for the words displayed on the ads themselves, we could all assume the ad was advertising sex, or rape, maybe even buses. “Gee, being dead in a trunk seems like good advertising, and people would buy it! ” – said No One Ever. This ad in particular does encourage violence against women, and it makes violence against women seem normal and acceptable in our lives. Thinking about it from the perspective of if the with the genders were reversed would be completely strange Would people really think about a man being dominated as a bad thing?
Or would that be every mans dream to have a bunch of attractive women holding him down? Imagine an ad campaign in which a woman appears to be beating up or murdering men. It would be interesting to see all of advertising change the roles of men as the submissive and helpless ones to see how their sales did afterwards. Most photographers and artist who create these ads believe that they are artist and can do what they want. They claim to see some sort of beauty in their “creations. Perhaps they put the women in a feathered outfit and make the advertisement black and white so that somehow makes it art. However, when asking my friend Julia (who is a photographer) about her opinions on women in advertising, she stated this, “It is an Advertisement. It is Commercial art. It is not about personal expression. It is about capitalism. Commercial art has only one purpose… To make you buy things. ” She has a good point, because so much money is at stake, everything is carefully planned to influence the buyer consciously and unconsciously.
These photographers have to answer to their superiors who pay them to make nice photos. Sure they think they are “fine artists”, but they are no different than the guy photographing pork loins for the Sunday advert. Also, there is an dead that the psychological damage that media imagery does seem difficult for some people to understand. Perhaps people (women and girls, mostly) deem all of the behavior going on in the ads as acceptable and should be allowed to be done to them. Or, men will view these ads, see other women in the same clothing and think they are asking for these disturbing advances. ” (Buzzed, 2013) In my opinion, seeing a photo of a murder or rape will not force another person to murder or rape someone else, however; if that person already has psychological instabilities, one loud assume they would be more likely to see violence as normal and when they see it day after day without having healthy and humbugging interactions with other people, they will be more likely to commit violence.
If people in society who have authority really care about the safety of women and their rights, they would most likely try to give crazy people fewer ideas about how to kill or assault women. Since violence and fashion have such a long history, maybe one day a photographer will go “Oh hey, maybe I should do something different. ” There are a lot of surreal and conceptual” ideas out there that would probably sell clothes better.
Although, why would people want to buy shoes a dead girl wore? Why would men want to wear a suit that they saw from a murder scene? In conclusion, there are a lot of messed up things going on in advertising. Perhaps it will change, or maybe it never will. There is no doubt that women everyday are being treated badly and used for their bodies. If I ever see an ad where a women is portrayed as someone with intellect and power, I will buy that product, no matter what it is.