Essay Iconography and Iconology of an Advertisement

In both the advertisements, there are two models, a man and a woman (Megan Fox). The models are both dressed up in formal attire with the man in a black tuxedo and the woman in a sexy black dress with a revealing back. Both of the ads include the models’ bodies facing each other at an intimate distance. This image displays a certain sex appeal which helps to connect the fragrance, “Armani Code,” to the idea of sexiness. The women’s fragrance ad shows the woman staring confidently at camera as a man is gazing towards her body touching her arm. This depicts the woman being desired. The men’s fragrance does the same with the man staring at the camera and the woman being entranced by the man. The two advertisements are marketed towards different sexes and use the main figure as the sexual object to be

In the Renaissance period women are almost invariably shown as completely passive and as an object for contemplation. The reclining female nude in the Renaissance raises questions of the male gaze more often than any other artistic stereotype. Female nudes were only an open acknowledgement of not only male desire but also the right males had to express that desire. A woman’s feelings when looking at such images of members of their own gender were never discussed or asked until recently.

For many people in the world to see an advertisement and move past it because they find them rather annoying has become the normalcy of today’s society. However, if people actually paid attention to those advertisements the readers would find that they think some of the ads should not have been allowed. An ad for Miss Dior perfume was presented in a late issue of Vogue with a model who looks to be about twenty-four years old. The model has shoulder length blonde hair, a clear skin tone, and a facial expression that could be considered provocative. The model is naked and only covered by a dress that she holds up which still only covers a portion of her top, middle section, and private area. Despite this dress, her complete right leg, thigh, arm, neck, and shoulders are revealed. In the foreground is a Miss Dior perfume bottle with the words “Miss Dior and you, what would you do for love?”. In Jean Kilbourne’s Killing Us Softly 4, she states that advertisements often send certain messages about women. Kilbourne claims that unrealistic ideas of women are often proposed within ads, such as symbolizing women as objects and not people, or even the idea that if you are not beautiful, then you are nothing. In the Dior advertisement, a few of its aspects uphold statements made by Jean Kilbourne such as sexualizing models to sell a product, emphasizing the idea of looking young and attractive, and placing models in vulnerable positions.

The reading claims that nudes throughout artistic history have been an important source of beauty and controversy. Nudes began to spike during the Baroque period as they were used for the more expressive and emotional arts of the time. In the nineteenth century, nudes became more common, yet became more sensitive. Artists would train by drawing nudes of ancient Greek statues and figures from myth. However, many artists would then move on to create works depicting prostitutes or peasant naked women. This would not please patrons as they were extremely societally taboo. However, this did not start artists from making them, as they moved into the twentieth and twenty-first century. This shows the importance of artistic nudes and their impact

She argues that Job Cigarettes by Alphonse Mucha shows how women were used as sexual objects in advertising. This supports her thesis, as using women as an appealing factor in advertising during the time shows how women were considered objects in the Art Nouveau style. Delftsche Slaolie by Jan Toorop also shows how hair was used as an exaggeration of women’s sexuality. The use of women as sexual objects in a simple salad oil advertisement further reinforces the idea that women were objects meant to appeal towards male audiences. Using works from the time gives her argument credibility because she is supporting her thesis with works from the Art Nouveau

Her body is arranged the way it is, to display it to the man looking at the picture. The picture is made to appeal to his sexuality. Although the models are beautiful, the images produced are distortions of reality. Her function is to sell a product. Her humanness is irrelevant-only look is important. She is a woman made “perfect” in the eyes of man. In his article “Sex Sells”, Steven Heller argues that the advertisement stimulates human libido. The industries use women as a symbol of sex to portray false images in order to sell their products. Similarly another study by Dodd et al (1989) explores that the photos of women tend to focus more on their bodies

Explained by Jeanne van Eeden, a professor in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Pretoria South Africa, advertising in capitalistic societies has a tremendous role in shaping how people view the world they live in (Eeden 3). She goes on to say, “Advertising images…stem from sets of power relations and enlist cultural codes, stereotypes, myths and ideologies in their social production of meaning” (Eeden 3). In other words, modern advertising reflects cultural class systems. Therefore, the poststructural feminist argument made by art historian Eunice Lipton that women did not form their own identities because they were not allowed to participate in art history, supports the idea that reoccurring images of women like the pudica pose created strict ‘feminine’ standards based on male expectations (Lipton 10). Even though women were enjoying the same freedoms as men, by the 1970s the obsessive preoccupation with the female body that took over American media made it apparent that the impact of long-standing male dominance had already corrupted the female psyche.

the intended audience of these advertisements, these 1930’s Woodbury ads contained images of nude women – a first for the industry (Reichert 97). Instead of using nude women to attract men, Woodbury used the women in the ads to show other women how they could and should look naked. They attempted to dictate the ideal 1930s female body, yet in comparison to previous eras, Woodbury women actually addressed the full female form, sans clothing. The nude woman in the advertisement reveals that she is comfortable with her body as well as the “serious sex appeal” that was popular in the 30s (Mulvey 93). Back then, just as they do now, advertisements “define what is sexy and, more important, who is sexy” (Kilbourne 260). In this ad, the body is not

Advertising is an elemental part of today’s society. It is a profitable industry which influences our lives and lifestyle choices sometimes without us even knowing. Brands tend to use immoral tactics to get the viewers’ attention and a commonly used tactic is the objectification and sexualisation of women. Using three contemporary advertisements as examples, this essay will focus on the objectification and sexualisation of women within the chosen advertisements and the semiotics behind the images.

In John Berger’s Ways of Seeing he offers the idea that “to be a woman has been to be born...into the keeping of men.” He illustrates on page 46, that women are born to satisfy men, at least in terms of art for most European painters. He empathizes this point by pointing at nude portraits and oil paintings. I decided to analyze my own choice of advertisement to compare his theory in the modern world. I chose an American Apparel advertisement; the company has a history of invoking reactions from the public. The advertisement does not require much analysis to cause offense to the general viewer. American Apparel crosses the line in more ways than one. However, the advertisement I chose was rather tame in comparison to many others I considered.

In the section designated “bodies” a painting by the artist Amedeo Modiglini is displayed. This female nude is titled Reclining nude. Like some of the other nude that were being painted after the idea of romanticism influenced art Modiglini’s nude didn’t follow the rules of classical painting. The nude is lying horizontal across the entire painting with her hands and feet cropped from view. This cropping put the viewer very close to this nude woman in a very sexual and provocative position. The contrast of the light and dark really brings her right out at you.

Women’s health magazines generally cover such topics as food, fitness, health, beauty, weight loss, style, sex and love with a target audience of adult women under 50. Appealing to this demographic, this advertisement with a partially nude man and woman surrounded by objects depicted from the Garden of Eden grabs the attention of the reader through the use of “sex, humor, need to satisfy curiosity, need for

The existence of a predominantly male society and the continuous perpetuation of patriarchy heavily affected the way woman are represented. Women may have been experiencing many privileges nowadays than women in the previous century could not, but there are stereotypes and imposed gender roles that linger, especially in the field of advertising. One of the common types of advertisements that are dominant today are the ones that depict women as a sexualized object to get the attention of the male audience. In the research conducted by Parul Nagi, it is shown that advertisements use women “to draw attention of prospective buyers” (85), and these buyers are mostly, if not all, men. This advertising strategy places the man in the position of the gazer, and the woman as the gazed (Mulvey 837). Advertisements depicting sexualized women rely on human pleasure appealing to the sense of sight. Thus, they tend to become pornographic, wherein “it dehumanizes and objectifies people” (Kilbourne 488), diminishing their worth to that of an object to be owned only for visual and/or sexual pleasure and easily disposed of.

There was about three color ads place on the bus shelters in San Francisco. These ads were mainly designed to look like Victoria Secret’s models (It’s no Secret), A Cosmopolitan Cover (Mastectomy), and an ad for Calvin Klein perfume (Obsessed with Breasts). In these ads with see beautiful women portraying a message on how society is obsessed with breast and they should be more concern on the women disable body. When we first look at these ads with see beautiful women modeling for the camera. It’s not until you look at their breast that we come to realize their disable breasts and painful scars. In her article Garland-Thompson shares her option on the issue, “these ads employ the sensationalism often characteristic of realism to protest inadequate breast cancer research and to exposed the cultural enhancement of mastectomies” (Garland-Thompson). Carefully analyzing these ads, a more sensationalize look keeps the audience from acknowledging the real problem. These ads provoke controversy and political concerns over what is an acceptable look for a women’s breast. The images intensify this forbidden version of disable breasts by ironically playing with the idea of sexism and eroticization of the women breast. By mocking the idea of pornography, these images protest against the

In general, a photographic practice that involves illustrations of the nude female figure that is created for art projects face the problem of objectification. Even though, artists have battled the female objectification by employing various photographic techniques to alter the perception of the eroticism, it is not possible to escape the arising sexual interpretation, when most of the time the portrayals of unclothed female literally depict the identifiable parts for sexual arousal. It cannot be denied that the images are erotic. However, they are not created to appeal to the male auditory. It can be clearly distinguishable what is displayed, but usually the reason is refraining from being a sexual imagery, instead it is much deeper of what