Feminist Perspectives: Extreme advertising

A woman in a tattered gown, bruised and broken, a puddle of blood haloing her head, lying at the foot of a domineering man. A below-the waist shot of a man, pants unzipped; and a woman on her knees in front of him—her leg splattered with the unmentionable. The flawless, glistening, nude body of a faceless model, displaying strategically placed bottles of some kind of alcohol. (Seriously, who’s looking at the booze here?)

No, these are not images from a porn site or some weird fetish ‘zine. These, believe it or not, are examples of images used frequently in today’s advertising.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but if I’m to be persuaded by an ad and actually purchase the product on display, I usually don’t want to think that my safety or my sexuality could be threatened like the models’ in the ads. And yet, countless ads out there do just that. They reduce women—specifically their bodies—to sexual objects through which a product is displayed.

Another current trend, especially in fashion ads, is to exhibit the model as the victim of some sort of violence, either physical or sexual (often both). Usually the advertiser is going for the shock factor here—and wow, do they succeed—but that doesn’t mean this serious offense against women should be considered acceptable. When we see ads like these plastered all over the media, we become desensitized to them. See enough horrific images like the ones described above, and they just glance off you like any of the other 3,000 commercial messages we are reportedly exposed to every day.

As a woman—and a human being—this is appalling. It is not okay for women to be portrayed like this in a medium that is made visible to every person, every day. Not only do ads consistently tell us that the bodies we have are not good enough, they also tell us it’s okay to objectify them. They tell us that it’s okay to treat a woman and view a woman as a thing—not as a person. They also tell us that it’s not okay to be satisfied with our bodies. We are told that we must change our body/face/personality/whatever in order to be sexy/beautiful/popular/whatever—or at least what our society constructs as such. But wait, if advertising reflects what our culture considers desirable, then what influences our culture? You guessed it. There’s this vicious cycle at work in the advertising world: ads reflect society’s desires but also influence society by showing us what we should do and need. It seems we just can’t escape.

One thing though: it’s important to disclaim that recently, men’s bodies have also been turned into objects and sold off for parts in advertising. Exhibit A: Abercrombie and Fitch. (I never really understood why guys are supposed to be convinced to buy clothes when the models are, in fact, not wearing any.)

Just like women, men’s bodies can be used solely for their sex appeal, belittling them into drool-inducing objects that catch the viewer’s attention rather than associate with the actual product to be sold.

But really, it’s just not the same. While male advertising is undoubtedly a prevalent example of how ads can objectify the body, the context of the situation is very different. Men (that is, heterosexual men) do not live in a world where violence and rape is a plausible threat. For women, such separation of the body from personhood can justify further objectification against them or even violence against them. Women are already the more vulnerable sex in this society, so to have advertising that further threatens women is simply unthinkable. And there are way too many ads out there like this.

Now I’m not proposing some mass uprising against the advertising industry to forcibly point out the errors of their ways. It’s impossible to change the ads themselves, but we can change our attitudes that influence these ads. So instead, let’s take it down to the individual level. Next time you see an ad that objectifies the body, don’t just ignore it. Acknowledge it, analyze it, process it. Easy as that. Maybe then, one at a time, we’ll start to realize the absurdity of this current trend in extreme, sexualized advertising and not let it influence our perspectives of women and bodies.