Susan Bordo Essay

What is it that drives commercials towards their target audience? Commercials can be aimed toward certain age, race, along with certain gender groups. Pop culture has influenced minority groups and shed light on women 's rights or so it may seem. Lisa Shaffer a fellow student feels otherwise and believes that Pop culture has only defended traditional values and does little to challenge those who already have power . Commercials bring in gender norms and in Steve Craig’s article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” he speaks on four particular TV ads directed towards male and female audiences. Interestingly enough these tv ads deliver a false image of the opposite sex to the audience catering to their preferences. It is the image of what the audience wants to see that appeals to them. This is all in an attempt to sell products and take advantage of our desires and anxieties. Craig shows how commercials bring gender norms that produce the stigmas of a man’s man and a woman’s woman, which makes it apparent that he would agree with Shaffer because it promotes an old way of thinking.

In our society today a business is not a business without an advertisement. These advertisements advertise what American’s want and desire in their lives. According to Jack Solomon in his essay, “Master’s of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising,” Jack Solomon claims: “Because ours is a highly diverse, pluralistic society, various advertisements may say different things depending on their intended audiences, but in every case they say something about America, about the status of our hopes, fears, desires, and beliefs”(Solomon). Advertisers continue to promote the American dream of what a women’s body should look like. They advertise their products in hopes for consumers to buy them, so they can look like the models pictures in the ads. Behind these ads, advertisers tend to picture flawless unrealistic woman with the help of Photoshop. In our society today to look like a model is an American dream and can be the reasons why we fantasizes and buy these products being advertised. “America’s consumer economy runs on desire, and advertising stokes the engines by transforming common objects;signs of all things that Americans covet most”(Solomon).

This ad shows emotional appeal because there is a mother taking care of her children.

Women should not be exposed on an ad about becoming a vegetarian due to the suggested violence. The suggested violence in advertisements could be the reason why women everyday are being degraded just because of their gender. There is no excuse to having a woman naked to get across a point. This organization demeans women by taking her, making her naked, and showing off the parts of her body to get a completely off topic view across. Advertisers have come to the point where they will do anything and say anything to sell a product or an idea. Kilbourne explains that “there is no doubt that flagrant sexism and sex role stereotyping abound in all forms of the media” (283). Kilbourne elucidates that women play roles as a piece of meat on television. Women are not portrayed as strong people in most advertisements and because of that, there becomes a normalcy to women not being strong people, which in the long run creates stereotypes.

If it wasn’t apparent the ad was targeted towards men, it becomes clear at this moment. The women cease to seem human and transform into object that seem to be putting on a show. The ad has quickly veered away from any relevance to the beer itself an instead uses the objectification of women to sell the ad. Sitting at a pool in impossibly revealing outfits the women argue over the calorie count and how non filling the beer is, because there’s no such thing as too skinny right? Even these models are still counting calories as if to make a statement that all women should be. This kind of objectification and unattainable image of women is damaging to the self esteem of normal woman and heightens the expectation of men. Not many real women wear low cut shirts and have the perfect body and beautiful underwear, it unrealistic and causes women to feel inadequate. This feeling acts itself as an oppressing force to women, causing them to never fell good enough or confident with themselves. Not only that but this paints the picture that these two women in the pool only exist for men’s

Gender role bias in advertisements has been so prevalent for so long that the untrained eye wouldn't even discern it. All the same, these biases, for the most part, put women in subordinate positions and men in dominant ones. This assumption on both the genders is unfair and demeaning. These ads portray women as subservient and play toys for men. Not only do the models depict an image nowhere near close to reality, but their bodies are scantily clad and what few clothes they are wearing are very revealing.

Sexist ads show that society is dominated by the same masculine values that have controlled the image of women in the media for years. Sexist advertisement reinforces gender stereotypes and roles, or uses sex appeal to sell products, which degrades the overall public perception of women. The idea that sexism is such a rampant problem comes from the stereotypes that are so deeply embedded into today’s society that they almost seem to be socially acceptable, although they are nowhere near politically correct. Images that objectify women seem to be almost a staple in media and advertising: attractive women are plastered all over ads. The images perpetuate an image of the modern woman, a gender stereotype that is reinforced time and time again by the media. These images are accepted as “okay” in advertising, to depict a particular product as sexy or attractive. And if the product is sexy, so shall be the consumer. In the 1970s, groups of women initially took issue with the objectification of women in advertisements and with the limited roles in which these ads showed women. If they weren’t pin-ups, they were delicate

This is particularly apparent with the effects of advertising media. Bordo points out that “miracle diet pills and videos promising to turn our body parts into steel have become as commonplace as aspirin ads,” (par.1) which influences an idea of the kind of body one should aim to achieve. Additionally, it presents the notion that, with such products, reaching one’s weight goal will come with more ease. It gives an incentive and makes people accustomed to the belief that losing weight is necessary. By exhibiting this pattern and concept that advertising media is inducing, Bordo gives insight as to why there is an influx in the desire to lose weight and to achieve it by any means necessary. She also suggests that the “ideal of the body beautiful has largely come from fashion designers and models” (par 2).With the exaltation and emphasis on the gratifying physique of a woman’s body, many young women find themselves corresponding to the ideals the fashion industry places on both its fashion and models. Remarkably enough, Borodo conveys that, not only are females following in the fashion industries’ steps, men are falling underway as well as “more ads featuring anorexic-looking young men are appearing too” (par.2). In presenting the fashion industry for what it represents and influences, Bordo effectively reveals a fellow cause of

Upon a quick glance, the advertisement published in 2015 by Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa appears to be abundant in color, joyful and fairytale-like; at least when I first saw it a year ago. However, after reading about the different variations of objectification in advertisements I no longer see the ad as an innocent take on fairytales. Advertisements are meant to be geared to a public, or a specific public, in order to sell a product. Still, some ads showcase women as the product or at least a way to get people to purchase the product. Although any gender, culture, religion, or group can be victims of objectification in advertisements, women are mainly targeted.

In Susan Bordo’s “Beauty (Re)discover The Male Body, she uses advertisement as a form of her argument on how

There are a couple of groups that this type of ad seems to really connect with and sink in. The first being the young, the reckless and those longing for love. Then there are those who want to feel that way, again. An older person in their 70’s and has recently retired, sees this ad, days of their youth would flood back in. This image captures the present and the past for both parties.

Gender inequality, “natural” gender roles, body image, and false romanticizations of food are enforced and portrayed through society’s commercials and advertisements. There are underlying and subliminal messages in many advertisements that create a hyperreal reality that influences people’s views and understanding of gender roles. In “Hunger As Ideology,” Susan Bordo discusses which advertisements portray a false reality and how it effects woman and men in society.

Issues of dieting, fat, and slenderness are hot topics in our culture. Bordo addresses them from a postmodern, but historical, feminist perspective. In this essay, she attempts to explain the appeal of slenderness in our society; and also, how the ideology of normal our society holds can be mentally and physically damaging for many people.

Figure four is a unique advertisement in itself because it breaks away from one gender stereotype, but then turns right around and reinforces another. It raises many questions about the roles of men and women, like are men codependent of women? Could the world survive without them? It shows a man holding a baby while wearing a woman's blouse which promotes freedom of fashion choices. The ad also introduces a stereotype by asking “What would the world be without women?” as if to say that a man holding a baby is a shocking thing to see. This emphasizes the “Lazy male” trope that men are seen as sub-par caregivers that lack of initiative and skill when it comes to caring for a child. This is harmful to young boys that grow up in environments that encourage this kind of behavior because it puts young boys in a state of fearfulness because they begin to think that they will not be able to properly care for someone else and this inadvertently burdens women because they will be seen as natural caregivers despite any natural inclinations they may or may not

The Tiger Beer advertisement shown in the appendix is a clear example of the objectification of women in advertising. The Tiger Beer advert was made to appeal to men from the age of 20 to 60. The advert seeks to get a cheap laugh from the target audience with the image of the woman in a sexual pose and the picture of the beer. The ad promotes the idea that beer is the most