Negative Ads

Many of today’s ad campaigns oppress the viewer with overbearing levels of sexual content, violence, stereotypes, all portraying negative aspects of our culture. Jean commercials emphasize the sexiness of women. Diet pill and weight loss programs are at least a quarter of all commercials. These are just a few examples of what people see everyday in the commercials and ads presented in front of them. In glancing through a magazine, no doubt one could find an ad like the one above.

This is a simple ad for an alcoholic beverage. In general, alcohol commercials and ads do not have a good reputation for their representation of women (with beer commercials showing men’s paradise and scantily clad women rush toward them and share their drinks with them, for example). But this ad itself crosses many other lines. Lines like objectification and sex that should never be crossed. This ad also involves several body image issues that can greatly affect the wellbeing of the viewer.

In the first line, the line of objectification, the woman here has become no longer a woman. She has been reduced to the “important” part of her body: her sex area. This image here has cut off her personality, her nature, and her identity. She has been completely subjected to the male gaze. She is no longer a person in this ad, but a sex toy. She has become an object for male views and male action; she has been put on display. Objectification leads to the lack of acknowledgement that the object is a person with real feelings and real senses. When the acknowledgement fails, dehumanization and violence toward whatever is objectified (in this case women in general) are sure to follow. Furthermore, this ad could be categorized as soft porn. See that pale looking bikini she’s wearing? That’s not a bikini- there is nothing there. That paleness is her tan line from getting herself that dark. The woman, even more of a sex object now, is naked.

Looking more into the position of this naked object in the ad, consider the crossing of the object’s legs. Is this not a subtle indicator that though she is naked and laying down (i.e. ready to be used as a sex toy), the leg crossing means she is unattainable? This is one of the many necessary items for a “perfect girl” according to the media as described by Jessica Valenti. Valenti describes this availability but unattainability as “she’s totally unattainable but simultaneously available for consumption. No guy who reads the magazine will ever meet her or talk to her- but he gets to look at her half-naked and jerk-off to her if he wants.” Now, look at where the alcohol bottle is placed. It is not in the object’s hand or near the objects mouth, where a normal beverage would be found. It can be found between the unclothed legs of the objectified woman, no more than six inches from her most private area, almost as if to give the men viewing the ad an invitation to try things with her. But, as her legs are still crossed, she is still unattainable.

The saddest part about this ad is the effects it can have on any woman who views it. First, with the woman allowing herself to be depicted in this way, she probably was not thinking about herself becoming an object for men’s desire. She was probably doing it in an attempt to show her own strength, much like Brittany Spears did in her music video for Womanizer. In doing this, she has herself become a Female Chauvinist Pig, a woman who has “made sex objects of other women and herself… with empowering mini skirts and feminist strippers.” Furthermore, if other women, especially young women were to view this ad, they would be told many lies about beauty.

Women who saw this ad could come to think that being exceptionally dark and thin was the way to be considered beautiful. But this darkness in skin color is not natural. Artificially causing one to be dark is dangerous and increases the likelihood of developing skin cancer. Eating very little in order to be very thin, can lead to eating disorders, malnourishment, and even death. Not to mention the confusion that can be caused by the overemphasis to be thin, yet the flooding of ads and commercials revolving around food.

All of these issues affect the view, the doer, and the innocent bystander. The viewer sees the ad and makes assumptions about what the perfect girl should be and about the purpose of women (objects of sexual pleasure). The doer, or person depicted, can be degraded in their own self-image if they ever discover what truly occurs in a man’s mind upon viewing them in the ad. And the innocent bystander would be a person who stumbled upon the ad, especially young women still trying to understand that their beauty truly comes from within themselves. All of these people suffer from ads like these. No one can succeed if everyone suffers.