An Analysis of Four Advertisements

Imagery, literature and language - modes of communication - are all ways by which a society constructs its beliefs and narratives, and how we are able to find meaning in the world. As contemporary notions of capitalism have reigned in North American culture throughout the 20th century, an awareness of production and consumerism is essential to an understanding of culture itself. As psychologically savvy advertising executives plague the fashion industry, it is often cited that "sex sells", that consumers are drawn toward purchases due to the sexual content and appeal of an image; but is this clichéd utterance enough to grasp the cultural phenomenon of material fetish? Even if one accepts that mass culture is driven to consumerism as a result of selling by sex, one must wonder: what is sex selling?

Through imagery, especially the print media, the emotional effect of advertising can be witnessed. Viewers always have an emotional reaction on some level, whether admitted or not - how else would one be able to designate favorite or undesirable advertisements without having assigned some type of emotional value to it? The question as to how these commercial images work, and how they are successful, however, remains unanswered. Their connection to a consumer cannot be wholly conscious; otherwise, one would be able to comprehend it in simple, logical terms. The rationale for the thriving advertising industry cannot be as simple as sex selling (that buying clothing/fashion is buying sex), or idolization and imitation (that one desires to be the woman in the image and tries to emulate her).

Thus an analysis of four advertisements from the October 2009 issue of Vogue magazine will demonstrate that the efficiency of commercial adverti...

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...e. The argument can be made that one receives pleasure in these purchases, as a displacement of a desire for sex transforms into a fetish for shopping. If the image is seen as manifest, and meaning is latent, then the viewer isn't simply buying sex, nor prostitution, but is rather purchasing a state of mind. The image does not appeal to the viewer only on the level of illicit sexual behaviour (prostitution, lesbianism, pedophilia ), but rather as a deviance from the socially acceptable and appropriate; in viewing and accepting the eroticized image in the unconscious, one is able to experience via catharsis societal taboo and rebellion, and to penetrate social norms. Advertisements, then, maintain social order in allowing viewers to participate in a controlled and directed unconscious rebellion, all without admitting to any conscious denial of capitalism consumerism.