Post #3: Are You Empowered?

In the past few years, a self-love revolution has emerged in mainstream media. Consumers are told, “love yourself”, “be the real you”, and “love the skin you’re in”. However, capitalism does not thrive if consumers believe they intrinsically have everything they need to lead a fulfilling life, so they are provided with images they cannot relate to, but are expected to, to instill a sense of lacking because it is profitable. And, of course, it is the product being advertised that will provide the sense of fulfillment and acceptance.
In reference to Dove’s ‘Choose Beautiful’ ad, Lindsay King-Miller argues, “These ads are not about a global revolution in beauty standards. It’s about creating an association between a brand name and a form of surface-level faux-empowerment…” (King-Miller, bitchmedia.org). If brands claiming empowerment were to disassociate themselves with the exhausting, unattainable, and unnatural expectations of women, there would be no ad—nothing for the brand to sell. So, women are force-fed surface-level images to define “empowered”. What happens to the women who don’t relate to these “empowered” images? Should the gender non-conforming, the dark-skin, the lesbian, the fat/not curvy, the transgender, not feel empowered too as they are?
Ads from the 1900s were explicitly oppressive in their representations of women by, for example, limiting them to passive roles in relation to men,

Bic 2015 - "Man's World" rhetoric mirrored

Van Huesen, 1951 - Passive, Housewife

blatant body shaming, and the expected career path as a content housewife to name just a few. While these images might seem outrageous in our current media climate, similar messages are still being told today in less obvious ways. This empowerment media age seems to be feminist on the surface, but it actually may be more dangerous in its strategy because this subliminal oppression tells a narrative that subconsciously, yet profoundly, affects how women perceive themselves and each other.
Less than a decade ago, there were almost no female leads of color on television. If there were, they were sharing the lead title with a white co-star.

Pretty Little Liars with Shay Mitchell as the only female lead of color

This lack of representation alone gives women who identify as Black, Hispanic, and Asian the wrong impression that they are not worthy of being seen on their own. Although that specific thought may not cross their conscious mind, this impression comes from a “language that represents them according to the interests of those who ‘represent’ rather than according to them themselves” (Gunter, Wykes 208). Women, especially those who are oppressed intersectionally, are conditioned to idealize images that are directly influenced by white, heterosexual, cis-male paradigms.
One of my favorite tv shows is How to Get Away with Murder, with one of my favorite actors, Viola Davis, as the lead.

Viola Davis as Annalise Keating on HTGAWM

Following Viola Davis on Instagram, I get to see how she expresses herself outside of a fictional character, and I noticed that more often than not she wears her hair natural, as opposed to with a straight-haired wig as on htgawm. In the show, Viola’s character, Annalise Keating, is “brilliant when it comes to legal strategy, and unflappable in a courtroom. Though a terrifyingly harsh teacher, she is a nurturing, devoted mentor”. I admire Viola Davis and Annalise Keating alike. They are both confident, inspirational women of color. However, I can appreciate Viola more as her most authentic self with her natural hair. It is true that women should be able to express themselves in whatever way they’d like, and I am sure a straight-haired wig all season (minus one episode in which Annalise has an emotional breakdown) is a character-based choice.

Viola Davis On Sexual Liberation, The Value Of Women Of Colour & #MeToo

I believe the content of the show informs the advertisements rather than the other way around, but as an actor of color myself with curly hair, seeing Annalise with straight hair on every ad for htgawm reminds me of the apparent struggle for women of color in the industry as well as life. And although young girls are definitely not the demographic for htgawm, shows like Ant Farm on Disney Channel portray the same struggle that can affect young women of color with the dream of being on screen and establishes a need to feel “conventionally beautiful” in hopes of representation (King-Miller, bitchmedia.org). On the other hand, the image of Annalise with straight hair is the same image of a strong, successful, confident woman of color with qualities I hope to acquire as a middle-aged woman.
A blog I like to read through now and again called Well+Good has advertisements on the header and sidebar of every page. Now, I am honestly quite immune to advertisements as distractions, however, the ads they are circulating at the moment are mostly of Samsung electronics. One is of the new Samsung phone and the other of the Samsung Galaxy watch. Although the Galaxy watch has elements that aid consumers in exercising which Well + Good encourages as a wellness blog, the dark, tech-centered aesthetic in the ads is disruptive to the rest of the blog. I know people in the wellness community that wouldn’t have an electronic sitting on their body because of the harmful electromagnetic radiation (EMF) it emits and comes in contact with the skin. I found just one post about EMF on the blog and it is really just a reaction post, however, it does give a tip to keep your phone away from your body as much as possible, “if you are a worrier”. I think it can be said that Well + Good has to be mindful of the tips they give out to readers based on the advertisers that are funding them despite the potential misalignment with wellness values.
I get most of my news from CNN on the Apple News app on my iPhone and, fortunately, I don’t see as many ads when I use the app on my phone versus going on the CNN website on a desktop. However, both platforms display advertisements that would not appeal to me or anyone I know my age. For example, the CNN website has ads like, Pods: Storage for Business, CitiBank credit card, and J. Crew while the app has ads that read, “How to pay off your house ASAP”. These ads aimed towards an older generation speaks to who CNN believes their audience is. Yet, many peers of my demographic use CNN as a news source as well. This leads me to believe that I may be missing out on information and news that is more specific to me outside of CNN. So, not only do advertisers dictate the media content their ads are surrounded by (as we learned from MS Magazine), they also inform the audience on whether the media source is targeting them.