Advertising Messages

Clients who advertise their products have one primary goal--profitability. If they are just interested in promoting a goodwill message, then their main concern would be how they can influence a particular audience. Whichever the case, clients need a vast part of an audience to purchase their goods or be enthralled by their message. But what happens when most of the products advertised come with an additional underlying sexual message to decode? The reality is that the brand image created for many of the products we see in advertisements also serve as an influential force in the personal lives of the audience. This becomes a problem when the images being presented create distorted perceptions, and worse of all promote wayward behavior. The current bombardment of negative images of women are a fitting example of this unfortunate phenomenon. The advertising industry has contributed immensely to the reformulation of the ideal woman. And while similar images of men are also currently a big trend, I am going to focus on women because we are still a higher targeted audience.

In "Killing Us Softly 4," feminist author, speaker, and filmmaker Jean Kilbourne, exposes us to images of women in all sorts of positions with forced "sexy" gestures, wearing everything from "flawless" nudity to beer bottles. Kilbourne points out how women in advertisements are objectified and dismembered. The message is clear--we are sexual objects that men can manipulate like their personal robots, and who will forever embark in the unquenchable and unattainable quest for perfection. Young girls that are unaware of the negativity in these images, are having false doctrines of what "sexy" is infiltrated in them, yet they learn nothing regarding true sexuality. The photo in the advertisement shown above, for example, is of a clothing store. The problem is that there is no clothing on the dismembered woman in the ad. If I were a naive person, I surely could have thought it was a hosiery store, but that wouldn't change the fact that the woman is dismembered. So American Apparel is representing American women and the clothes that flatters them(or the buttocks that are flattering to society)--whichever way you go, it's degrading. And as mentioned previously, a high profit in jeans (I suppose) is expected for the store. If all goes well, then similar ads will continue to be produced in abundance. Sadly, Kilbourne states that, despite her efforts to raise awareness, the negative portrayal of women in media have worsened. If the issue is so grave, why are so many people literally immune to this social phenomenon? The problem is that it is overly pervasive and "in the face" of our developing five year olds as well.

Another author and speaker of girls and women's issues is Peggy Orenstein. In "Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture," Orenstein writes that "even brief exposure to the typical, idealized images of women that we all see every day has been shown to lower girls' opinion of themselves, both physically and academically" (Orenstein 8). As if this were not enough, the human brain is not fully developed until approximately 25 years of age. An online article in "Discovery Fit & Health" states that "the part of the teen brain not yet fully developed is the frontal lobe, which is the part of the brain that manages impulse control, judgment, insight, and emotional control. If a person has not acquired their full capacity for judgement, they may not be able to form all opinions wisely. Similarly, if a person's ability to use insight is not fully developed, they may not be able to grasp the meanings of many underlying truths. We have already learned that marketing and advertising specialists like targeting teenagers because of their trend-setting capabilities, but I am sure that their brain capabilities and limits are seen as an advantage to them as well.

Misrepresented images are luring girls at the onset of their development in a pervasive, influential, and manipulative manner. It seems that the only way to combat this social issue is with the same pervasiveness and "in your face" attitude. Sometimes I wish a consensus could be successfully formed, and that everyone could just boycott stores that advertise using such misinterpretations of women. I have always thought that if courses in media literacy would form a permanent part of our youth's academic curriculum that progress is attainable. It should also be mandatory for freshman entering college to take such courses. If enough advertising companies would be willing to sacrifice profits temporarily for the sake of our youth and start presenting images of "normal" looking women, then everybody's mindset would gradually start remolding itself in a positive way.

Works Cited

Orenstein, Peggy. Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture. HarperCollings e-books, 2011.

HowStuffWorks.com Contributors. "Are teens' brains fully developed?" 29 March 2011. HowStuffWorks.com. http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/nervous-system/are-teens-brains-fully-developed.htm. 11 August 2011.

Sarkeesian, Anita. "American Apparel Advertisement." 01 May 2010. Online image. Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/anitasarkeesian/4572353781/