Long post, but lots of provocative pictures!

 You are what you eat.

And in our society you consume (beyond solely edible products) materials. Materials that are marketed to you through advertising. What is featured on advertisements, too frequently so, are not the actual items that the company is selling, but an image. Ads can show a particular way of life that can be achieved using the marketed product

Then what exactly is this? 

The Nikon s60. Detects up to 12 faces.

Humorous, and the viewer can chuckle at the peeping neighbors, given that an ad like this is most likely to be displayed in a male-dominated-medium-- like GQ or Esquire. That raised another question for me: sexual objectification of women isn't displayed only in areas dominated by male viewers. 

Sisley, a fashion company known for its provocative image is featured often in many fashion magazines. For a company that caters both to males, females, and children, Sisley's ads seem to degrade the female as a sexual object, blatantly displaying her role.

Sisley 2001 ad

What exactly is this image selling? There are no images of clothes-- and milk has very little to do with fashion. But as many of us consumer can testify: sex sells. It doesn't matter what it sells, but whatever it is, it's selling it.

It doesn't matter what this woman is capable of, but her appealing cleavage is all that matters-- and is all that is needed to define her.

/sarcasm.

The list for such ads go on and on. We are immersed by these ads. Jean Kilbourne definitely comes to my  mind as I write this. Her study shows that in 1999, people were exposed to about 3000+ ads per day. Now it's 2011. It's hard to put a number on the amount of ads we could be exposed to now, especially with the internet. We are surrounded by these ads, and our cultural norms are dictated by these dominating images. What we make sense as reality is greatly influenced by these ads. 

Glamorizing drug use, overly thin models, provocative nip slip, "fashion junkies...-- the "display" of the usage of cocaine, a topic of criticism in the fashion industry-- Sisley demonstrates a licentious, unethical stance in showing what is fashionable, desired,  and "cool".

The Sisley ad is one ad that I found recently and chuckled at the way Sisley poked fun at a controversial issue surrounding the fashion industry. Until I stop and think at how "wrong" this ad is. It's not an image that should be in the hands of a young teenage girl who is interested in pretty clothes.

But back to my point on sexual objectification-- of course it is not only women that are objectified in this way: men are too. However there are far less images of men being portrayed in this way (in a non-joking way), although the numbers are steadily rising. It certainly does not count as being progressive.

An S&M type of image-- the far right girl seems to have a whip/stick. The men in both this image and the bottom are shown as being submissive and inferior.

American Apparel, highly criticized for it's amateur porn-esque poses and images allows for a democratized style of modeling. This is definitely debatable as certain individuals deemed "attractive" by a model scout decides who is able to pose, but formal training and experience in modeling is not necessary. Woody Allen is able to pose for underwear. It's almost humorous to see him there, but it could be that this image is acceptable because he is male. He becomes reduced in his vulnerability-- in just his underwear, but the sexual eye of the viewer would analyze this picture differently than if they saw..oh I don't know, Andrea Arnold in this same pose. Society feels squeamish seeing a woman in this way.

Advertisements, though I enjoy its wit and clever way of making items seem appealing, can exert its power in demeaning ways.

Throughout my blog I want to stress the power of advertisements in creating needs and shaping customer preferences. When customers see repeating images, especially gender-based images that translate into norms, it becomes hard not to expect such roles of the people who associate with that gender. Pressure is placed on women, and women expected to fulfill these expectations. Desire is cultivated on the part of the woman. Women are to be pleasing to the (lewd) eye, and well, boys... will be boys.