The following essay will examine how the media, particularly advertising, still frequently portrays how we see gender as little more than a stereotypical black and white representation of the ideal masculine and the ideal feminine. In order to illustrate this thesis we will examine 3 visual advertisements all found via the Internet and all created within the last 5 years. We will also use information from the film Miss Representation as well as idea from Women’s voices Feminist Visions chapter 5. In the film Miss Represntaion the producer and narrator makes the point that girls “can not be what they can not see” the whole film works to argue that the media is selling a very one sided idea about what it means to be a valuable women in today’s
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The add features a handsome barely clothed man lying across a dining table while seductively pouring Kraft Zesty dressing on a bowl of salad. I feel that there is a lot going on in this advertisement; obviously the man is being sexually objectified and his airbrushed abs are certainly sending a message about what an ideal man should look like. However, I feel that this add is mainly targeted towards women which is problematic in a few ways. First of all this ad is using rather hackneyed imagery of a candle lite dinner with a handsome hunk to attract the female consumer. It assumes and reinforces that this is the type of relationship and romance all women want. The man is very much presented as an object whose only purpose is sex appeal. If this man were to speak I get the impression that all he could manage would be some kind of an overly cheesy pickup line. I also believe that it is just generally problematic that this ad is so blatantly targeting females. The purpose of the ad is to sell salad dressing and by so clearly directing this ad toward the female consumer, it genders a type of food. Somehow we end up with the idea that salad is a women’s food, which can reinforce the idea that women are more concerned about what they eat and watching their figure. Before you know it what seems like a silly salad dressing add is perpetuating unrealistic body standards for women. I think this ad is a good example of enlightened sexism because although it appears to be poking fun at gender stereotypes it is also enforcing them at the same
The add features a handsome barely clothed man lying across a dining table while seductively pouring Kraft Zesty dressing on a bowl of salad. I feel that there is a lot going on in this advertisement; obviously the man is being sexually objectified and his airbrushed abs are certainly sending a message about what an ideal man should look like. However, I feel that this add is mainly targeted towards women which is problematic in a few ways. First of all this ad is using rather hackneyed imagery of a candle lite dinner with a handsome hunk to attract the female consumer. It assumes and reinforces that this is the type of relationship and romance all women want. The man is very much presented as an object whose only purpose is sex appeal. If this man were to speak I get the impression that all he could manage would be some kind of an overly cheesy pickup line. I also believe that it is just generally problematic that this ad is so blatantly targeting females. The purpose of the ad is to sell salad dressing and by so clearly directing this ad toward the female consumer, it genders a type of food. Somehow we end up with the idea that salad is a women’s food, which can reinforce the idea that women are more concerned about what they eat and watching their figure. Before you know it what seems like a silly salad dressing add is perpetuating unrealistic body standards for women. I think this ad is a good example of enlightened sexism because although it appears to be poking fun at gender stereotypes it is also enforcing them at the same