Throughout the years advertising business grew and became more and more involved in the lives of people, evolving into the stereotypical, racist, sexist and idealistic monster that it is now. If we are to believe advertisements, and according to Killbourne and Kellner we do, women in the American society are white housewives with gorgeous bodies, who absolutely love to cook and clean. Killbourne presented in the Beauty and the Beast of Advertising a research on in what ways modern day ads are sexist, these include: superiority, dismemberment, clowning, canting, dominance/violence. (123) I decided to create a counterpart list, to some extent, of how advertisements could be improved:
- · Create a tax on advertising. Idea is presented by Kellner in Reading Images Critically. Ads are filed as business expense and thus are exempt from taxing. This, in my opinion, may make corporations careless about what kind of commercials they make, what kind of images they include, and who might be offended by it. However, if advertisements were taxable and cost more money to the companies than they were willing to spend, it might make corporations think twice before creating a sexist/racist ad.
- · Make certain ads asexual. In Sex, Lies, and Advertisement, Steinem brings to light the fact that “people’s products” are being advertised mostly to men. (112) For example car commercials should not feature only men at the wheel of the car, since it creates an association in the eyes of the consumer – car=man, and on the top of it presents an aura of dominance – he is steering the wheel. Sticking to the example, car commercials should be targeted at everybody and the simplest solution in this case would be tinted windows so that driver is unknown.
- · Make ads minority friendly. We live in the country that is built on and by immigrants from all over the world. Therefore it is disrespectful and unreasonable to target only the largest group, since it is the largest only when compared to one other and not all of them together. Advertisements should not feature white people exclusively. Cleaning products, electronics, beauty products, and etc are used by every race and ethnicity, and therefore this should be correctly represented in the advertisements.
- · Make ads more realistic. We all know that Photoshop is wonderful when it comes to wrinkles, stretches, excess weight, and undesirable body features; be that as it may, but there needs to be a limit to how far it can go. For example, Photoshop should not be used to enhance the effects of the diet of some celebrity in a magazine, which can create unrealistic results. On the same page, Photoshop and similar software should be used to enhance the effects of beauty products, once again creating unreachable results. Therefore there should be a consensus on how far from the truth can the images we see be changed.
Slim vs Curvy
That picture is a testament to the how ridiculous the media is. Rihanna looks amazing in both versions of the photo, the adjustments weren't even that severe but the person who edited it obviously felt the need to fix it. Terrible.
ReplyDeleteI concur with the first point you made, taxation changes the behavior of the industry and of the consumers. Not only will they think twice before putting an ad out there, but the consumers will also think twice before buying.
ReplyDeleteAll the points made are really good alternatives to the mainstreams ads we see everyday.
I definitely agree that ads should be asexual and more realistic. Realism can be accomplished, as you stated, by dropping photoshop and including minorities in ads.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if a taxation on ads would really make a difference to ad agencies. I feel like with the pressure to make the most of their money, they would go to even further extents to make sure they get consumers hooked on their product... making us feel even worse about ourselves? -scary thoughts.
Alex, I like how you point out that everything we see is altered. Even slim celebrities such as Rihanna can never be "slim enough" so they have to tuck in her belly. This is insane but unfortunately a part of the world we live in.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact that advertisement should be tax instead of writing it as a business expense because no one is taking responsibilities on how young adolescence are taking the ads seriously. The picture of Rihanna is a perfect example how hard the media works to create false body images and promote the same skinny girl formula.
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