Women in Advertising

After reading Susan Douglas’s essay, “Narcissim as Liberation,” I was surprised at how much it hit home. It’s amazing how the media can sculpt such an image, and companies put hundreds of thousands dollars towards fueling it. Having never really thought about it before, I was intrigued by this idea of how looking good is a status, as putting money into looking good is a requirement. I appreciated Douglas’s sarcastic take on advertisments on television and in magazines.
While looking for pictures for this assignment, I found it very difficult to find advertisments in which a woman was not using her body to sell sex, beauty products, or anything of that sort. The task of this assignment was simple; find pictures of alternative representations of women in the media and post them. However, it was much more time consuming than I expected, which really proves Susan Douglas’s point – women are portrayed so superfically in the media, almost every advertisment is using a woman’s body to sell a product.

(photo from Dove.com)
This photo, taken as part of Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty,” shows a woman with a body that is not perfect – as contrived by the media- and supposed to be an inspiration to other women. While her legs are not as a thin as the media usually expects, or she is shorter than a supermodel, she is supposed to be an inspiration to other women, and thus, promoting Dove’s sales. While she does use her body to sell a product, it’s done in an almost reversed way than what Douglas discusses.

(photo from FoodNetwork.com)
This next photo, from FoodNetwork.com, uses the traditional “women-in-the-kitchen” role to sell cooking products. People can identify with this woman, the one who cooks dinner for her family, and uses to proper kitchen tools to do so. Identifying with the woman in the advertisment attracts other women to buy the products. This advertisment defininately does not use sex or body image to promote sales, although it does play off the traditional sterotype of a woman’s place being in the kitchen, or her job being to cook meals for her family.

(photo taken from Target.com)
This photo, used to get shoppers to open a Target credit card account, does a good job of catching one’s attention. Instead of using the woman’s body to attract viewers, it uses a fun facial expression and bright colors. The model looks so happy, trying to portray the idea that the consumer will be just as happy as she when they open an account at Target.