The Influence of Advertisement

            We live in a world where society heavily depends on advertisements as a guide for how to behave, dress, and look. Advertisements tell society to be a certain way, and unfortunately society obliges. It’s a very toxic system, because advertisements tell us certain gender roles, sexuality, race or body types are the ideal and “most attractive” way to be.

            Women, unfortunately, have a rough time when it comes to advertisements. The advertising world supports many horrible systems, like creating unrealistic beauty standards in their ads. These ads have major influence on girls and women, and brainwashes them into believing the only beauty in the world is the one they see in ads. Which in return, causes women to go through drastic measures to change themselves to become “beautiful”— such as developing eating disorders. In their book The Media and Body Images, Maggie Wykes and Barrie Gunther write when exploring the impact of food in media, “The subtle implication is like food and be like your mother, or reject food and be sexy, successful and maybe even a star” (213.) Advertisements, are telling us that the only way to be successful is to be stick-thin. That’s the only way we’ll be loved, because that’s attractive.

            The purpose of the images advertisements promote are to make money. If they force society to believe one way is the most attractive and ideal way to be, we’ll buy the products advertised so we can become that way. Advertisements have a lot of influence, and popular culture is learned from it. Advertisements create a standard of beauty, and that standard becomes popular and what everyone strives for. Advertisements have a lot of unintended affects. In a “Tedx Talks" young Sofia Rodriguez-Dantzler, who looks like she could be no older than 12, explores the negative effect media has on society. She states that children start expressing dissatisfaction with their bodies and go on diets at ages as young as 6. Advertisements, she explains, shows “attractive bodies,” but in reality these are not healthy bodies. So people put themselves in unhealthy situations to achieve this body, such as anorexia and bulimia. Although the goal of these images is for the company to make money, it’s also successfully killing society.  

            Body image isn’t the only issue found in advertisements. There are issues of racism and sexism in terms of gender roles, and it all falls back to the same influencer... how we’re supposed to appear in order to be viewed as “attractive.” In her essay Hunger as Ideology, Susan Bordo states, “Only occasionally are little girls represented as being fed; more often, they (but never little boys) are shown learning how to feed others. In this way, caring is representationally 'reproduced' as a quintessential and exclusively female activity,” (125.) Advertisements tell society how to behave. By portraying women as always working and serving in the kitchen, they are telling us that the attractive way to behave is to serve others. Advertisements tend to have very sexist elements in them, always portraying the women as the passive server, not getting in the way of men. Advertisements tend to be just as equally racist, because this “attractive” persona they portray is not only a stick-thin, serving women, but also generally blonde and fair skinned. An example is a Dove ad from late 2017 which was criticized for being racist, because it showed a Black women taking off her “dirty” brown shirt to become a “clean” white women in her clean white shirt. Advertising profits off this ideal, attractive, beautiful women they are influencing society to be, but this ideal women is impossible for real women to be. It’s a toxic marketing plan.

In this Calvin Klein ad, all the models are white and extremely skinny. 

            When it comes to my own use of media, I try to limit it as much as possible, for I am very aware/uncomfortable with how awful and toxic advertising and media make me feel. But, I am human and I don’t live in a cave. I watch plenty of TV; my current favorite show is This Is Us. I love listening to podcast such as My Favorite Murder and Serial. My go to news source is Buzz Feed. And one of my favorite novels, which I just finished rereading, is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. All of these media were created or promote strong and independent women. They don’t always show us the ideal and most attractive woman, but the real woman. And these women might not be stick-thin or blonde, but they are creating podcast, news articles and books. They don't focus on beauty, but on the world and real life. We need more advertisement and media like these is our world, and I am fortunate to live in an age where I have access to this kind of media.  As stated the Bitchmedia article Here’s What Bother’s Me About The New Dove Ad, “These ads depend on the assumption that in order to be happy, empowered, or confident, women need to feel beautiful” (King-Miller.) Advertisements need to stop telling women how to be attractive, and just advertise real women.

Bordo, Susan. "Hunger as Ideology." (1993): 99-134. Print.

King-Miller, Lindsay. "Here's What Bothers Me About the New Dove Ad." Bitch Media. N.p., 15 Apr. 2015. Web.

Wykes, Maggie, and Barrie Gunter. The Media and Body Image: If Looks Could Kill. London: SAGE, 2010. Print.