Admonishing Advertisements

Advertisements are ubiquitous. Regardless of personal preference, be it for magazines, television, newspapers, film, or any other medium, it is inevitable that the media consumer will encounter as much advertisement as content. Along with products, advertisements sell “a worldview, a lifestyle, and value system…” (Kellner 127). All too often, the perspective offered by advertisements takes power away from women, implicitly accepts racism, and reinforces sexist stereotypes.

In Chapter 6 of Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, Wolf describes a marketing committee’s postwar strategy for drawing women away from the workforce to avoid a perceived threat of “political unrest, even a repeat of the Depression” (Wolf 63). The committee recommended that advertisers add a new dimension to domestic tasks like cooking and cleaning, associated with “maternal and wifely love throughout our culture” (Bordo 122), by offering specialized household products, and by making sure women felt “guilt over hidden dirt” (Wolf 65). This strategy of making women’s ‘inadequacies’ ‘fixable’ by specialized products worked just as well, if not better, for hawking beauty products. Advertisers realized, according to Wolf, that women “will buy more things if they are kept in the self-hating, ever-failing, hungry, and sexually insecure state of being aspiring ‘beauties’” (Wolf 66). And according to these advertisers, beauty is white. Ethnic minorities are further ostracized in that they do not fit the mold put forth by advertisements. Although viewing women themselves as “helpless victims of conspiracy plots” (Cortese 63) is far from accurate, it is important to note the conscious effort made by advertisements to place women in a position of powerlessness.

Advertisements do not just reinforce the idea that women are powerless over themselves; they locate women as having less power than men. While rejecting “the somewhat simplistic behaviorist model that holds the media violence causes real-life violence,” (Cortese 76), Cortese acknowledges the reprehensible acceptance of sexual violence as a viable advertising strategy that condones the victimization and subjugation of women to violent male desire. He cites many examples of magazine advertisements in which “masculine images are dominant, intimidating, and violent, while feminine images are subordinate, receptive, and passive” (Cortese 72). Men, however, are not immune to stereotyping. According to Cortese, “today’s ideal man has pumped his pecs and shoulders and exhibits well-defined abs” (Cortese 58). The incorporation of men into the “beauty myth,” and the portrayal of men as violent aggressors, is far from a step in the right direction – objectifying and vilifying men will reinforce, rather than undermine, the gender roles that advertisements reflect and encourage.

Popular culture is, unfortunately, seen in these advertisements, simply by virtue of the fact that these advertisements pervade all forms of media. The integration of media and the increasing prevalence of the media make it inevitable that current and future generations will come into constant contact with advertisements. The messages of these advertisements, both explicit and implicit, cannot but inform the viewer. Whether the viewer adopts the power hierarchies in advertisements or rejects them cannot be predicted. Nor can it be gauged whether the reaction will be conscious. What is certain is that a new kind of advertising is needed, one that moves away from the notion of ‘gender roles’ and that displays equality and diversity.  

Susan Bordo regularly asks her students to find such alternatives. She writes about a television commercial for microwavable children’s meals, which displays a “complicated and bewitching tangle of new possibilities and old patterns of representation” (Bordo 131). Bordo acknowledges that the ad  “neutralizes the gendered meanings of [cooking and fixing bikes]” and attempts to show that there is nothing emasculating about cooking and serving food for others. Bordo does not believe that the word ‘progress’ necessarily applies this advertisement, as it and others like it “do not show clearly just where we are going” (Bordo 131). Perhaps it is indeed unclear, but it would seem that this kind of advertisement represents a shift from the “dominator model” to the “partnership model” described by Bell Hooks in Chapter 7 of The Will to Change. Advertising agencies could adopt this model by promoting “interbeing and interdependency as the relationship of all living beings” (Hooks 117). 

While it may sound idealistic, perhaps steps can be taken to make it reality. Advertisements could offer a worldview in which people of all races, ages, and genders undertake tasks that celebrate equality, sustainability, and happiness. This won’t be easy. Change in advertising must necessarily be accompanied, or even preceded, by social change. And there is one thing about advertising as we know it that will never change – the impetus to sell. Rather than selling, advertisements must offer. It is, alas, extraordinarily difficult to imagine how advertisements in a capitalist society could make that shift. Hope lies in the convergence of technology, information, and education, and in those few small legislative steps that promote humanistic values.

Bordo, Susan. “Hunger As Ideology.” Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. 99-134. PDF

Cortese, Anthony. "Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads." Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. 54-76. PDF

Hooks, Bell. “Feminist Manhood.” The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. New York: Atria Books, 2004. 107-124. PDF.

Kellner, Douglas. "Reading Images Critically: Towards a Postmodern Pedagogy." Journal of Education. Vol. 170, No3, 1988. 126-32. PDF.

Wolf, Naomi. “Culture.” The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York: W. Marrow, 1991. 58-85. PDF.

Advertising the Good

           Advertising plays on the image of what everyone should be. It feeds into the misleading perception of identity. Women and men alike idolize people and a certain way of life depending on what’s shown to them through mass media. These images and commercials are used to shape people’s minds into believing they can attain a certain stature by changing the way they look and behave.

            As humans, imperfection rises repeatedly. We lose ourselves to the media ultimately becoming submissive to the pressures of society. Harmful habits start to form such as anorexia and bulimia. Maggie Wykes and Barrie Gunter touch on the negative effects media places on women as to what they should look like. ‘Thin’ and ‘fair-skinned’ seems to be the ongoing favorable image throughout the decades. Women and men alike subject themselves to detrimental behaviors forced upon them in order for them to ‘look good’. Starting at an early age, we socially introduce fairytales to our daughters creating a perfect image of what is expected of a princess. A princess should be vulnerable and helpless always waiting on their prince charming to rescue them from their current situations. The image of princesses has been passed down through the decades telling young girls that you must be pretty and skinny. To model one’s own life off of a fairytale can lead to nowhere but ignorance and disappointment. For one, the only colored princess to have emerged from Disney has only been recently created altering the racial landscape of the traditional princess. On page 220, Wykes and Gunter state that media and society establish a false standard of what is and what is not desirable, and every woman wants to feel desirable. We change our entire lives in order for others to gaze even when we don’t want them to.

            Though harmful, we continuously buy into the scheme of advertising. Especially affecting our eating habits, media has strict unwritten laws as to how to eat. In the commercial industry we see all of these low fat bars and snacks that should fill you up, keep you going, and help you maintain a certain bodily shape. FibreThin bars reassure young women that food isn’t a necessity. Malnourishment is caused mainly by a lack of dieting interests. People are either indulging in fast foods or starving themselves, believing that snacks can sustain them. Society has also created the false image of gender roles making us believe that men act, women appear, men eat, women prepare. Unfortunately we buy into this system of promises that don’t really make us any happier. In Bordo’s Hunger as Ideology she elaborates on the restrictions we place on ourselves to be more ‘health-conscience’. In Fig 16 on page 120, there’s an ad for Log Cabin maple syrup with the caption that states this syrup will make your pancakes taste like the good old-fashioned home-styled pancakes we crave. In complete contradiction, our country has mass produced healthy foods with labels of real food like ‘cheesecake yogurt’. That sounds utterly disgusting, yet we settle to have the artificial flavors touch our taste buds while we satisfy our minds thinking we must be doing something right if we’re eating yogurt.

            Food advertising goes to the extremes of actually sexualizing the things you eat. We hear the deep sensual voiceover while chocolate’s being drizzled over the perfect scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. We find ourselves engaged and even saying to ourselves, “I’m hungry” after these ads finish. Media has structured our minds into believing wanting food is a sin. The only time women should actually want to eat is when they’re menstruating and chocolate is in dire need or when they’re pregnant and nourishment is a must. Sexualizing food doesn’t stop there as masculinity and femininity are challenged by the things we eat. Companies have even named their foods Manwich and Hungryman seemingly only suitable for high-testosterone-leveled men. The ridiculousness has gotten out of hand.

In addition to food, advertising tells us the type of demeanor that is not only acceptable but even more so, cool. Virginia Slims is a cigarette brand that constantly promotes female smoking. Their ads are filled with attractive, skinny, fair-skinned women who appear desirable. This form of advertising is simply morally wrong. And stupidly enough, we believe that if we smoke cigarettes, there is a certain empowerment of self. We believe everything in the media is good for us. We believe media and advertisements are there to better ourselves, yet it is only a part of the capitalist system for corporations to acquire more money. For some odd reason, the general public lacks the ability to think for themselves creating a global platoon of fools following orders.

Media tells us what to love. It tells us what needs to be done in order to be the best version of you. Media forces us to conform to an ideology that isn’t best suit for our health both physically and mentally. We live in a country where soda is banned from schools yet we still air national commercials for Pepsi and Coke, their colors ironically patriotic. We make millions of dollars on cigarettes yet we stamp each individual box with the message that cigarettes kill. Strategically, we know how to make money. We don’t know how to do what’s actually good for us. Greed takes over like a virus infecting the entire world as everywhere else believes America is the best, yet everyone knows this powerhouse of a country is the worst. Foreigners still strive to come to America for a better life. Advertising strategies is not of my primary concern. It does NOT deal with the root of the problem at hand. The root lies in what we advertise, not how we advertise it. We need to readjust our goals from money-oriented intentions to wanting a more organic, more appreciative lifestyle. Currently, we’re running away from our humanity trying to fit people into Iron Man suits. We aren’t invincible, we’re just infinite.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdRLYqP7ZoM

I guess this stuff appeals to our taste buds....

 

 

Eating ice cream before your meals...because that sounds right.

Do advertisers realize how influential their ads are? Yes! Do they care? No!

            It is no surprise that advertisements utilize sexism, patriarchy and racism to sell their products. When all the messages of an image are striped away, the real goal is promoting an object and profiting from the sales. However, due to the complicated advertising images different messages are being linked with the item being purchased, simultaneously. Popular culture is definitely found in these images and it has a reciprocal effect too. Images in magazines are becoming the next big thing in popular culture, based on an advertisement determines what’s in style.

            Sexism in advertisements is never subtle recognizable to the views. It ridicules how women and sexuality have been intertwined into almost every ad. I see the female roll of the seductress as a sexist act, because it is almost always portrayed that way. In most car commercials it’s not a man, laying on the hood of the car seducing the audience. As Berger states of a naked paining “You painted a naked women because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the women whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure” (p.51), can be applied directly to car advertisements.  The women is a seductress (equivalent to nakedness) but she is only behaving that way because of the car (mirror), but her vanity in front of the car gives the audience permission to that visual without guilt. The Beauty Myth also states “sexualized image of female models that, though only slightly subtler than those aimed at men, are meant to convey female sexual liberation” (p.69). This leads into patriarchy because it is understood that the commercial is aimed at men.    

women and sexuality  intertwined into this ad for a car

            Patriarchy is taught to us from a very young age and we learn our roles as men or women. In most advertisement men are manly and women are supporters to his manly role. In her article Understanding Patriarchy, Bell Hooks breaks down the roles of both genders to maintain patriarchy stating, “By placing the blame for the perpetuation of sexism solely on men, these women could maintain their own allegiance to patriarchy” (p.25). I think advertisement images play to support patriarchy and only deliberately stylishly refute it. Most advertisements have men chopping wood and coming home to food being prepared by their wives, only when fashion is involved do women get to wear pants and combat boots to look fabulous walking down the street. It is never to combat patriarchy that advertisements have unisex clothing, but rather to provide something to be sold that is defies the norm of women’s clothing. 

women wearing dress vs. women wearing pants

             Racism in advertisements is rarely noticeable but always stereotypically accurate. In the case of Bell Hooks article The oppositional Gaze, Black Female Spectators, “ one’s enjoyment of a film wherein representations of blackness were stereotypically degrading and dehumanizing co-existed with a critical practice that restored presence where it was negated” (p.117) supports the fact that stereotypes are the ones normally depicted in mass media.  It is easier to play along with the stereotype a population has become accustomed to then to develop non-humorous realistic depictions of real problems faced by different minority groups. In these advertisements that depict racist stereotypes, children learn these stereotypes and either embody them or are bullied on their basis. If you are a black male you are tough, and either you show your strength by bulling others or others bully you for being a weak black male. It is contradicting.    

            Do advertisers realize how influential their ads are? Yes. Do they care? No. Advertisements promote movements and popular culture but for all the wrong reasons.  The Punk movement was a way for people to rebel, and Punks were really feared because they were antigovernment, however the movement became a style to be purchased for a small fee. Due to advertisement a whole movement became misrepresented and sold to the masses (Ewen).  The reverse also occurs in which negative images are promoted in mass media or advertisements are penetrating into popular culture. This is supported by Where the Girls are? in which it states “mass media helps make us the cultural schizophrenics we are today” (p.8) by promoting different images and contradicting those images. Women need to be strong but vulnerable, sexy and virginal, fully opposites, which can’t coexist, promoted as the ideal meaning of being a women. Other things being negatively influenced by advertisements are what are titled Children as Sex Object in the article Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads: Sexism in Advertising. In the few pages that the author dedicates to these advertisements it becomes surreal to imagine how these images are used to over sexualize children. It is bizarre to image that a child was made to pose so that “she has the illusion of cleavage, created by body posture that creates a shadow in the cleavage area” (p.65). Why are these children not wearing any cloth?       

How movements become mass media

            I think advertisements can’t be shut down because they sell goods. They make people feel the need to bye an object and that emits a feeling. It would be very beneficial if ant-advertisement of children were possible. The use of children to sell items that involve them not having cloth on should be illegal [I don’t get it at all]. Limiting exposure to advertisements is a way to combat them by blocking the negative message. It might seem like a small-scale comparison to advocacy advertising but it promotes the well being of the self and that unsubscribe you from the mass message and allows for an oppositional gaze to develop.  

Bibliography: 
Berger, John. "Ways of Seeing". London, 1973.Print. 
Cortese, Anthony Joseph Paul. "Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads." Provocateur: Images of Women  and                            Minorities in Advertising. Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Print

Ewen, Stuart. All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture, New York:1988. Print

Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Atria: 2004. Print

Hooks, Bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. South End Press: 1992. Print

Breeding Shopaholics (Post #3)

From J.Crew promotional catalog

       I received a promotional magazine from J.Crew in the mail yesterday, although I have never shopped there or visited their website. It lists my full name and address and offers 20% off my first purchase (in an attempt to make me feel special, I suppose). The picture above is one of many similar slogans found on its pages (my second favorite is “a coat to color her happy”). Earlier today, after shopping for personal hygiene products at Duane Reade, I found a beauty-book inside the bag with my purchases. Potential “perfect gifts” in the make-up section were promoted under a catchphrase “seconds away from beautiful”. And there are many more examples of how products are marketed to attract consumers (especially female consumers) with a promise to instantaneously make us pretty, happy, sexy, and healthy while implying that we currently possess neither of these characteristics.

As a matter of a fact, advertisers may be driving some women in our society to psychosis known as shopaholism, or oniomania – a compulsive, destructive and chronic desire to purchase unnecessary goods on an almost daily basis. Studies suggest that as many as 8% of all Americans may be “shopaholics,” and according to Dr. Koran ofStanford University, approximately 90% of them are women. Considering that women are traditionally assigned a gender role of shopping decision-makers in our society, I strongly believe that capitalism lies at the heart of low self-esteem and depreciation of modern women by filling a void in our emotional selves with the satisfaction of obtaining new material things. Another study was done on 280 people in the UK by debt management company Kensington Financial Management. Of the people surveyed, 67% had bought items they had never worn or used, 84% had bought a perceived bargain on impulse, almost one third shop for non-essential items every week, and one fifth admit they think about shopping at least once per day – of this group 33% said this thought made them excited and 19% said it made them feel more confident.

Consumerism taken to extreme

Consumerism is taken to extreme levels in America and not unintentionally.

Generally regarded as “the father of public relations,” Edward Bernays was the first to suggest that people can be manipulated to believe that products can make them feel good about themselves if promoted strategically. Since then, excessive buying has become the engine of modern capitalist economies and is systematically studied and analyzed by market research professionals in order to predict personal characteristics, which may lead to high consumption. Perfectionism, self-expression through material possessions, and approval-seeking are some of the emotions which have been found to stimulate economic growth. As a result, a cultural paradigm promoting these values has been developed and imbricated in all aspects of daily activities – work, leisure, and family. Wykes and Gunter argue that the limited way in which women are represented in media is part of how they are treated and valued in life and lead to common instances of poverty, harassment, self-hate, and discrimination. (p.220) Easy availability of credit and organization of the retail world along with the twenty-four-seven nature of individuals’ exposure to media outlets create the ideal environment for the impulsive recreational shopper.

Shopping is often promoted in popular culture, e.g., shopping sprees of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, as a way to transform and improve one’s flaws and literally increase self-worth.

Messages, such as “big girls don’t cry, they go shopping” (Bordo, p.100), suggest an illusory solution to the distorted self-image of women and create a vicious cycle of compulsive behavior. Advertisers capitalize on our belief in the magic of material goods by demonstrating how a particular product can transform us magically into someone more socially desirable, attractive, and powerful. Television and magazine advertisements are particularly seductive as they are tailored to specific audiences and target groups. All those glamorous and sophisticated things we see, beautifully presented and often digitally edited using Adobe Photoshop or other image-manipulation software are intended to spark deeply acquisitive feelings, envy, and personal inadequacy. In fact, a study of body image conducted in 1996 found that 70% of women felt depressed, guilty, and ashamed after looking at fashion magazines for a mere three minutes (Garner andKearney-Cooke, 1996).

“the body fat of models and actresses portrayed in the media is at least 10 percent less than that of healthy women”

Modern women are constantly bombarded with images of unattainable beauty ideals. Every woman who has ever opened a copy of Vogue, seen an ad for makeup, watched a movie or lusted at the Oscars knows that the image of the “perfect woman” is all around us. We can even describe her quite well: thin, glossy hair, thin, perky breasts, thin, fat-free thighs, thin, long lashes, thin. The fact is, “the body fat of models and actresses portrayed in the media is at least 10 percent less than that of healthy women” (British Medical Association, 2000). We are continually surrounded by pictures of women who are medically unhealthy, and then we are told to do our best to look like them. Whether it is buying the diet pill to drop 10 pounds fast or doing the correct butt exercises for six weeks, women are constantly attacked with advertisements and images of what we should look like and how we can get there. However, even the products we are supplied with today are not that safe and healthy.

         It’s time to recognize what the modern standard of beauty truly is: someone else’s idea of what you should look like perpetuated by greed and revenue-seeking behavior of capitalists. It’s time to forget that standard and love your body exactly as it is. Wykes and Gunter  suggest that "it would be amazing to be offered a mediated representation of the female world that shows women in their full variety, complexity and range of ability."(p.220) But is it really possible? I think so. I am confident that there are ways to create healthy and humane ads that would cater to intelligent consumers and still bring sales and profit to businesses and advertisers. One way is to advocate gender-neutrality in marketing, education, and other social spheres. The following LEGO ad is a perfect example of a simple yet effective message, one that is not found on sexist principles and does not promote self-hatred and insecurities.

A different kind of ad

 

        Clearly, it did not take too much efforts or sacrifices from LEGO marketers to show respect for the consumer. Compare it with an ad for Love Cosmetics:

"sexy innocence"

          Another way to enforce alternative images in advertising is through social activism, which has become exceptionally undemanding in the era of widespread internet use. We, as consumers, are obligated to voice our concerns and actively critique the media if we want to see a change. Below is a great example of such "couch-activism" in response to Bic Pens for Her, which has features like "elegant design - just for her!" and a "thin barrel to fit a women's hand." (Yes, seriously.) The pens also come in an array of pretty pastels such as lavender and mint. (You know, because it's just "for her.") Shoppers on Amazon wasted no time in writing hundreds of scathing, and often sarcastic, reviews:

Works Cited:

Bordo, Susan. “Hunger as Ideology.” Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. University of California Press: Berkeley 1993

Wykes, Maggie & Gunter, Barrie. “Conclusion.” The Media and Body Image. London: SAGE Publications, 2005

Perfect Provocawhata?

       Advertising: perhaps the most obvious, tangible, accessible, and influential form of media. Advertising appeals to a wide array of people that range in gender, age, race, and cultures. It is delivered in many distinct forms; television commercials, magazine and newspaper spreads, posters adorning the walls of nearly every subway cart and bus stop, and even while we watch films via product placement. Advertising is essentially everywhere, waiting to infiltrate our minds when we least expect it. Advertising is extremely prevalent in how we judge society, our peers, and ourselves. As consumers and spectators taking in the messages being conveyed, we often lose sight of what the primary goal of these ads were; to sell a product. Most advertisements follow similar strategies in that they all attempt to target specific groups of people. Whether it be adolescents, men, women, senior citizens, Latinos, Asians, etc., no one is spared; advertising is all-inclusive. It is a pity that advertising, many times, perpetuates society's old and outdated gender and race roles because, as Kilbourne points out, with each of us being “exposed to over 1500 ads a day”, advertising is “perhaps the most powerful educational force in society” (Kilbourne, 121). Although the primary goal of every advertisement is to promote their product effectively enough to make the consumer go out and purchase that item, they “attempt to sell the product by associating it with certain socially desirable qualities, but they sell as well a world view, a lifestyle, and value system congruent with the imperatives of consumer capitalism” (Kellner, 127). In a nutshell, advertising drastically shapes the way each and everyone of us, living in a media driven world, identifies with ourselves, each other, and our surroundings.

      Although ads typically all follow suit of targeting a particular audience, the stereotypes used often range and vary. For instance, women tend to be depicted as one of two things; “sex objects or mindless domestics pathologically obsessed with cleanliness” (Cortese, 54). Similar to film and television, advertisements perpetuate notions of the 'ideal woman' or the “perfect provocateur” (Cortese, 54). Defined by Cortese in “Constructing Bodies, Deconstructing Ads”, the 'perfect provocateur' is essentially impossible to achieve; with not one blemish in sight, no wrinkles, split ends, scars, or pores, the 'perfect provocateur' is every woman's worst nightmare and wildest dream all wrapped up in one. We all hate her; the Victoria's secret model staring back at us through her perfectly symmetrical bedroom eyes, yet we all secretly long to be her; to encompass her effortless beauty. So, as a means to get as humanly close to being the 'perfect provocateur' as possible, we buy the liquid concealing foundation; the pressed mineral powder; the teeth whitening strips; the 'perfectly plum' lipstick; the push up bra; dieting pills, and so on and so forth. “Women are constantly held to this unrealistic standard of beauty”, and if they fail to attain it, “they are led to feel guilty and ashamed” (Cortese, 54). Thus, we the 'imperfect provocateurs', consume and purchase more and more products while we obsess and stress over what we see (and what we don't) being reflected when we look into a mirror. Cultural ideology that is perpetuated through ads, suggests that we are flawed and broken; in need of mending and repair. If, in fact, we cannot be fixed by the endless amounts of makeup and pushup bras, we are led to believe that we are not desirable and are essentially unworthy of love. Even ads geared towards men depict images of the perfect woman, always seen, yet rarely heard.

      According to Jean Kilbourne's, “Beauty and the Beast of Advertising”, by constantly being surrounded by these 'artificial' images of what women should look like and behave, “a woman is conditioned to view her face as a mask and her body as an object, as things separate from and more important than her real self, constantly in need of alteration, improvement, and disguise” (Kilbourne, 122). This phenomenon of women, young and old, constantly feeling inadequate in their own skin and feeling the unrelenting urge to check their images because they are not the 'perfect provocateur', can be related to the writings of John Berger in “Ways of Seeing”. Berger states that “a woman must continually watch herself”, “from earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself” (Berger, 46). Berger argues that women must always be watching and observing how she appears to others and “ultimately how she appears to men” because, it is “of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life” (Berger, 46). If we look back through history, and the iconic women that dominated in media, we see a drastic change in what was considered to be the ideal woman, then and now. Marilyn Monroe for instance, weighed approximately 140 pounds during the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl; a huge difference from say, Gisele Bundchon's whopping 100 pounds soaking wet.

      Men have also been typecast-ed and influenced in advertisements throughout history; pressuring them to be a 'real man' and 'man up', while also having a perfect body that oozes sex appeal and a rugged, blue-collar man charm. As Cortese notes in his writings however, this macho male image has not always been the projected male identity prevalent within advertising; “In fact, 90 percent of male models are working class- rough around the edges and beefy, not as frail, thin, or chiseled as their predecessors” (Cortese, 58). It appears as though muscularity is becoming the prerequisite for masculinity. Although the idea of an uber muscular man as the poster boy of masculinity may be a new one, the notion that real men do what the men in advertisements do, dates way back. “Such symbolic images in advertising attempt to create an association between the products offered, and socially desirable and meaningful traits in order to produce the impression that if one wants to be a certain type of person”, then one should purchase certain promoted products (Kellner, 127). The iconic Marlboro Cowboy, made infamous through Marlboro cigarette ads, was considered the ultimate “man's man” fully equipped with his crush proof cigarette box (because everyone knows men like crush things), and was considered as the ultimate symbol of masculinity. Today, its more about how much you can bench press and how good you look with your shirt off, in a pair of Calvin Klein boxers, than being the 'lone ranger', drifter cowboy that always wears his boots and hat. Similar to the anxieties women face when they feel as though their looks/ body image is not up to par with those depicted in the advertisements, men too struggle with body image. Personally, in my life, I have noticed that more and more of my guy friends have become borderline obsessed with their weight and how others view them publicly, more so than a majority of my female friends. Not only do men have the constant pressure of having to be strong, reliable, tough, thick skinned, and athletic, they have to be able to get the hot blonde's phone number at the end of the night, and if they can't, then there must be something wrong with them. The same goes for females as well, not only are we expected to be beautiful every minute of everyday, but we also have to be sweet, gentle (so as to not intimidate the big strong muscle man), sophisticated, and well spoken (only when addressed, of course), and again, if we do not achieve all of these, there is something inherently wrong with us.

     Perhaps, however, it is not us as individuals who are wrong, so much as it is the advertising strategies employed by the big advertisers. Whether they are aware or not, the ads they are creating and releasing are plaguing our minds with images and desires of an artificial being. Rather than using the same washed up strategies that have been circulating around for decades now, why not challenge the stereotypes, norms, and values embedded within advertising, that objectifies and detaches the individual from themselves by reversing the roles. Imagine, a commercial on daytime television, that depicts a father and son outside playing [insert sport here], when, uh-oh, little Johnny got grass stains all over his nice new khakis! Mom can't be found anywhere, but its okay because dad's a real man who knows how to score a touch down and get rid of those pesky stains. Or how about a commercial for Triple A's roadside assistance with a female tow truck driver, that can take apart and rebuild your entire engine in a hour's time. Or perhaps even one, just one, magazine cover that is not all composed of photo-shopped images of Beyonce in a ball gown, but instead a thirteen year old girl with glasses, braces, and acne, smiling as hard as she can for that picture because at that moment, she was genuinely happy and carefree, totally comfortable in her skin and surroundings. It is as simple as substituting one person, object, item, theme, and message in exchange for another as a means to transform these stereotypical ads we find ourselves gazing at numerous times daily into something more meaningful, positive, and potentially beneficial monetarily. Rather than advertising cosmetics as corrective treatment, which insinuates something was wrong in the first place, why not market them as tools of enhancement. There is no need for this constant devaluation of the consumer done by not only the advertising companies and media, but by themselves as well. Never should the sale of a product outshine the consumers interests and well being, we should be encouraging happiness and being content with ones self rather than feeding off of their insecurities, bullying them into purchasing a product because with out it they are inadequate, not good enough.

• Kilbourne, Jean. "Beauty and the Beast of Advertising." Media & Values. N.p.: Winter, 1989. 121-25. Print.
• Berger, John. "3."Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1973. 45-64.
• Kellner, Douglas. "Reading Images Critically." Journal of Education. 3rd ed. Vol. 170. N.p.: Trustees of Boston University, 1988. 126-32. Print.
• Cortese, Anthony Joseph Paul. "Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads." Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. 54-76. Print
  
  http://www.thegloss.com/2013/10/10/fashion/melissa-mccarthy-reese-witherspoon-penelope-cruz-shailene-woodley-elle/
  ^what do you think? Should Elle magazine have portrayed Melissa McCarthy similar to how they portrayed Shailene Woodley/ Resse Witherspoon?
  lol Joe Namath