Values In The Potter Box, By Laura Mulvey

Today, everyone seems to believe that women have everything they want: the right to vote, equal opportunity, and the ability to marry who they want. As much as people who like to believe we have come so far, there is still a long road ahead because of the many implicit and explicit examples of sexism everywhere. Normally when one thinks about a jewelry advertisement, what comes to mind is an ecstatic couple. The women, smiling widely with surprise as the man presents the ring. This advertisement from Natan Jewelry depicts the opposite. Instead of seeing love through an equal gaze, viewers see it through the male gaze. The male gaze is a concept coined by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey. Male gaze refers to the way visual arts are structured …show more content…
The first step to The Potter Box is defining the situation. After extensive research, I found that Natan is a Brazilian company that produces upscale jewelry, watches, pens, wallets, and briefcases. The company does not have a strong online presence, but the outcries from many individuals over their advertisements is prominent. My next step was to identify values. According to Kirtley and Ison, “values can be separated into four categories: societal values, general values of an industry, specific values of an organization, and one’s own, personal values.” Although Natan most likely thought their advertisements would be successful and garner attention and profit, it does not uphold my personal values. I do not believe that women should be depicted in the way they are in the advertisement; the ad implies that women are merely objects, inferior to males, and marriage-hungry. Natan Jewelry is based in Brazil, which means they are catering to a different audience than they would be here in the United States. Values can be tricky when regarding culture, because different cultures have dissimilar sets of values. Although this ad conflicts with my personal values, it may not conflict with the audiences values due to different cultural norms that exist in different places. After I examined values, I considered ethical principles, which according to Kirtley and Ison, “can be similar to values, but, as applied in the Potter Box, are generally broader sets of guidelines such as philosophical theories.” I believe that Natan Jewelry should have chosen to consider the philosophy of Communitarianism, which “is a social philosophy that maintains that society should articulate what is good–that such articulations are both needed and legitimate” (Etzioni). In his encyclopedia,