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Essay on gender stereotypes in advertisements
Gender stereotypes in advertising essay
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Carrie Packwood Freeman and Debra Merskin are the authors of “Having it his Way: The Construction of Masculinity in Fast-Food TV Advertising”. They describe how fast food restaurants across America use masculinity in their commercials to target the male population and get them to buy their food. Although I concede that fast food restaurants do use masculinity to target the male population, I also insist that they are also used to target the female population of America as well. The masculinity not only appeals to the male population, but the female population as well. In the article, Freeman and Merskin analyze commercials for six different fast food restaurants that use masculinity to sell the idea of their food being good and manly. The …show more content…
The commercial they analyze is known as Test Marketing and is advertising the diner melt combo. The commercial shows Jack and another executive looking through a two way mirror at a group of test subjects that consist of all males (Freeman and Merskin, 464). The test shows that men prefer their fast food over other things that men would be attracted to such as a motorcycle, a keg of beer, sports on TV, and women having a pillow fight (Freeman and Merskin, 464). With these findings they “can rule the world” and carries the tagline “Indulge” (Freeman and Merskin, 464). This commercial shows that men prefer fast food over women and may lead women to believe that in order to get a man’s attention they need to get this fast …show more content…
The commercial they analyze is known as Construction Workers and advertises the reuben sandwich. Three construction workers that are on break stare quietly at two attractive women that just so happen to be walking by (Freeman and Merskin, 464). The workers begin whistling and getting noisy when a balding business man walks by with an Arby’s bag (Freeman and Merskin, 464). The commercial shows that man as a sex object by playing guitar and using slow motion (Freeman and Merskin, 464). This commercial has the tagline of “I’m thinking Arby’s”. This commercial depicts manly men going nuts over Arby’s food, which convinces other men to want their food because the manly men want it. Women would want their food so that men will notice them walking
This is another commercial where we can directly see how the advertisers are overlooking gender stereotypes, by it being ranked number one it proves that when gender stereotypes and gender bias are not incorporated the advertisement becomes effective and
American’s and people in general are an audience targeted for various commodities, advertising being a major contributor. The world of advertising has become a multiplex science, as mentioned in “What We Are to advertisers,” Twitchell divides consumers into 8 categories and Craig, in “Men’s Men and Women’s Women,” concludes there are specific times of day for advertisements to be displayed to reach specific audiences. “Mass production means mass marketing, and mass marketing means the creation of mass stereotypes,” claims Twitchell. These stereotypes of men, women, and humans in general are how advertiser’s reach their targeted audiences.
Americans have long since depended on a falsified ideology of idealized life referred to as the American dream. The construct of this dream has become more elusive with the emergence of popular cultural advertisements that sell items promoting a highly gendered goal of achieving perfection. In “Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising,” Jack Solomon states that ads are creating a “symbolic association between their products and what is most coveted by the consumer” to draw on the consumer’s desire to outwardly express high social standing (544). The American dream has sold the idea of equality between genders, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds, but advertisements have manipulated this concept entirely through representations
Men and women both drive cars, it’s a simple necessity to be able go to work for most people, however, from the commercials on television, one would assume that men are the primary purchasers of cars. In Steve Craig’s essay, Men’s Men and Women’s Women, he analyzes four commercials to illustrate how advertisers strategically targets the viewers. Craig argues that advertisers will grasp the attention of the viewer by the gender ideals that both men and women have of each other. Not only do advertisers pick a target audience demographic, but they also will target the audience at specific time to air their commercials. By analyzing an Audi and Bud Light commercial, one can see that Craig arguments are true to an extent but it appears that commercials have gone from an idealized world to a more realistic and relatable stance. for are still [true, however it seems that commercials may have altered to appear more realistic.] [relevant to an extent. This is to say, it appears that advertisers may have altered their commercial tactics. ]
According to Robert Scholes, author of On Reading a Video Text, commercials aired on television hold a dynamic power over human beings on a subconscious level. He believes that through the use of specific tools, commercials can hold the minds of an audience captive, and can control their abilities to think rationally. Visual fascination, one of the tools Scholes believes captures the minds of viewers, can take a simple video, and through the use of editing and special effects, turn it into a powerful scene which one simply cannot take his or her eyes from. Narrativity is yet another way Scholes feels commercials can take control of the thoughts of a person sitting in front of the television. Through the use of specific words, sounds, accompanying statements and or music, a television commercial can hold a viewer’s mind within its grasp, just long enough to confuse someone into buying a product for the wrong reason. The most significant power over the population held by television commercials is that of cultural reinforcement, as Scholes calls it. By offering a human relation throughout itself, a commercial can link with the masses as though it’s speaking to the individual viewer on an equal level. A commercial In his essay, Scholes analyzes a Budweiser commercial in an effort to prove his statements about the aforementioned tools.
Common sense seems to dictate that commercials just advertise products. But in reality, advertising is a multi-headed beast that targets specific genders, races, ages, etc. In “Men’s Men & Women’s Women”, author Steve Craig focuses on one head of the beast: gender. Craig suggests that, “Advertisers . . . portray different images to men and women in order to exploit the different deep seated motivations and anxieties connected to gender identity.” In other words, advertisers manipulate consumers’ fantasies to sell their product. In this essay, I will be analyzing four different commercials that focuses on appealing to specific genders.
In this generation businesses use commercial to persuade different types of audiences to buy their product or to persuade them to help a certain caused. If you analyze commercial you can see how certain things play a major role in the success of a commercial. The ad I decide to analyze as an example is the commercial snickers used during the Super Bowl in 2010;”Betty White”-Snickers. This commercials starts off with guys playing a game of football with an elderly women know as Betty White. As Betty White tries to play football she is tackled to the ground. Her teammates refer to her as Mike when they come up to her to ask why she has been “playing like Betty White all day”. This helps inform the audience that Betty White is not actually playing but instead represent another teammate. As the guys keep arguing Mikes girlfriend calls her over and tells her to eat a snicker. Betty White takes the first bite and then suddenly a man appears in her place ready to finish the game. At the end of the commercial the statement "You're not you when you're hungry" is shown followed by the Snickers bar logo. What this commercial is trying to show is that hunger changes a person, and satisfying this hunger can change you back to your normal self. They use different types
Aaron Devor in, “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender,” argues that gender is a performance. He supports his argument by recognizing how society rewards, tolerates or punishes conformity to or divergence from social norms (widely accepted behaviors set by society). If a male fails to fall into his expected characterization of dominance and aggression or a female fails to act out in passivity and submission, they are at high risk of societal punishment.
According to Steve Craig in Signs of Life in the USA, the economic structure of the television industry has a direct effect on the placement and content of all television programs and commercials. Craig is a professor in the department of radio, television, and film at the University of North Texas, Craig has written widely on television, radio history, and gender and media. His most recent book is Out of the Dark: A History of Radio and Rural America (2009). Craig talks about the analysis of four different television commercial, showing how advertisers carefully craft their ads to appeal, respectively, to male and female consumers. The gendered patterns in advertising that Craig outlines in his essay still exist today, in commercials of how a men and women are portrayed.
The documentary Killing Us Softly 4 discusses and examines the role of women in advertisements and the effects of the ads throughout history. The film begins by inspecting a variety of old ads. The speaker, Jean Kilbourne, then discusses and dissects each ad describing the messages of the advertisements and the subliminal meanings they evoke. The commercials from the past and now differ in some respects but they still suggest the same messages. These messages include but are not limited to the following: women are sexual objects, physical appearance is everything, and women are naturally inferior then men. Kilbourne discusses that because individuals are surrounded by media and advertisements everywhere they go, that these messages become real attitudes and mindsets in men and women. Women believe they must achieve a level of beauty similar to models they see in magazines and television commercials. On the other hand, men expect real women to have the same characteristics and look as beautiful as the women pictured in ads. However, even though women may diet and exercise, the reality...
When Americans think of masculinity, they often see an unemotional, assertive, and muscular man. This identity is broadcasted all over America and young boys and men are soaking it up like a sponge. During the superbowl every year, companies display commercials that are intended to subconsciously show men how they’re suppose to carry themselves. For instance, in the Miller Lite commercial “Man card”, four friends are at a club when they see their friend sweet talking a girl in the corner and they proceed to tell him to “Man up”, also in the next clip the same 3 guys are playing football when they see the other guy riding a scooter and they proceeded to tell him what he’s doing is “unmanly”. This shows that sexist commercials aren’t just aimed towards women but also to men and young boys. While reading CJ Pascoe’s, “Dude. You’re a Fag”, She argues that the word “fag” has little to do with someone being gay and that it can have several meanings. Michael Kimmel believes that boys are being taught to be tough at very young ages, which cause them to sometimes act
No McDonalds Did Not Do A Good Job With Its Spiderman Toys “For girls”, is a blog written by Emily Asher-Perrin. It presents ideas about targeting advertising to appeal to different sexes and the stereotyping of society’s expectations on girls being unfair. Through the use of persuasive devices such as colloquial language, rhetorical questions, italics and repetition, the audience is positioned to respond in an accepting way, agreeing with the ideas Asher-Perrin raises throughout the text.
When one tries to appeal to another, they must communicate in terms the other party understands or identifies with. In the context of advertising, this concept is crucial to maximize the allure of the product sold. Since marketers have a limited amount time in the span of a televised commercial, they must rely on shortcuts to convey their message quickly and efficiently. These shortcuts are in the form of stereotypes and common associations that allow the audience to understand the idea being portrayed. As stereotypes are illustrated on a massive scale, they reinforce our view on what is typical of certain traits and characteristics, regenerating the method relied upon. In the commercial, “Bean Counter”, produced by Apple, a number of traits are presented that have cultural significance in how they are widely perceived.
Advertising in American culture has taken on the very interesting character of representing our culture as a whole. Take this Calvin Klein ad for example. It shows the sexualization of not only the Calvin Klein clothing, but the female gender overall. It displays the socially constructed body, or the ideal body for women and girls in America. Using celebrities in the upper class to sell clothing, this advertisement makes owning a product an indication of your class in the American class system. In addition to this, feminism, and how that impacts potential consumer’s perception of the product, is also implicated. Advertisements are powerful things that can convey specific messages without using words or printed text, and can be conveyed in the split-second that it takes to see the image. In this way, the public underestimates how much they are influenced by what they see on television, in magazines, or online.
In the essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” author and philosopher Susan Bordo discusses the history and current state of male representation in advertisements. While using her feminist background, Bordo compares and contrasts the aspects of how men and women are portrayed in the public eye. She claims that there has been a paradigm shift the media with the theory that not just women are being objectified in the public eye, but also men too. Since the mid-1970s, with the introduction of Calvin Klein commercials, men have started to become more dehumanized and regarded as sex symbols. In a similar fashion to how Bordo describes gender, race plays a similar role in the media. People of all different ethnicities and cultures are being categorized into an oversimplified and usually unfair image by the media over basic characteristics.