Negative Stereotypes In Advertising

No one can escape advertisements. Whether sitting down in front of a television, a computer screen or driving on the highway. Most are harmless ploys by a company promoting their products. But some try specifically to target a group of people, weather that be a race or a gender, leaving them feeling alienated or offended. The problem is that advertisements are so prevalent in today’s culture that stereotypes can easily be broadcasted to millions worldwide. Over all, advertisements are a perfect vehicle to reinforce stereotypes in American culture.

It is important to realize that advertisements reside everywhere in American culture. With advertisements being so prevalent, stereotypes can spread all over the nation in a matter of seconds. For

These specific ads target certain groups of the gender and then in turn, generalizes the gender as a whole. Cooking advertisements are an ideal model to prove my point. Commercials and magazine ads about grilling exclusively feature males. Reinforcing a stereotype that women cannot grill and that grilling, is specifically a male role. Vice a versus, advertisements about cooking in the kitchen for the family exclusively feature females preparing the meal. Therefore in forcing the stereotype that women cook the meals and spend more in the kitchen then their male partner. In Claude M. Steele’s essay titled An Introduction: At the Root of Identity he goes on to state “we don’t like to think that conditions tied to our social identities have much to say in our lives’. He is absolutely right. Us as Americans don’t like to think or don’t like to believe for that matter that our gender, and any other factor influences our social life and status in this country. But were exposed to those factors every day in advisements, and no one does anything about it. We help advertisements reinforce stereotypes that we don’t agree with. These Advertisement’s use of targeting helps generalizes groups of people and genders. To reinforce this idea take a look at Ads for the Armed forces. You exclusively see males participating a combat. They are targeting specifically young males to join their