The exploitation of the hypersexualized female image to sell a product is all too common in today's advertising industry. This advertisement, announcing the latest season of successful FX television drama “Nip/Tuck,” is a perfect example of it. Though "Nip/Tuck" is a drama series that has been critically praised for its writing and acting, a non-viewer of the show would have never learned this by looking at the advertisement displayed above. It is jarring to realize just how embedded the concept of "sex sells" has become in marketers' minds. Even a well-respected, well-rated show believes that it must use a sexualized image of a woman in underwear and heels to sell itself. Furthermore, for a show that does anything but glorify the plastic surgery business (in fact, the show often solely displays its darkest sides), its promotional advertisement promotes the dangerous idea of women as objects. The woman standing before the two men, allowing herself to be inspected, is displayed as a moldless piece of clay that must be pinched, cut and tweaked in order to be seen as acceptable.
But what can be said in response to this pervasive exploitation of women in the Western ad industry? There have been several pop songs emphasizing inner beauty, such as Uncanny Alliance's 1995 hit, "I'm Beautiful Dammit" and Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful":
For girls not interested in pop music, riot grrrl bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Sleater Kinney have all made several albums focusing on the rejection of impossible patriarchal beauty standards. Furthermore, magazines like Bust and Bitch do not employ make-up editorials in their issues and never accept advertisements that seem exploitative or derogatory towards women:
Recently, a woman in the Little Italy section of New York City fought back against misogyny in advertisements when she scribbled a response onto a street ad for the Tucker Max film "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell," which promoted rape in its rhetoric:
If more women can begin to see the other alternative options around them and begin partaking in those options while rejecting the mainstream exploitative images that are fed to them by mainstream advertising, then perhaps a cultural shift can truly be made. Of course, this is easier said than done. Many young women who have grown up seeing these ads on an incessant basis have already internalized aspects of the dehumanizing images put in front of them. It will take more than alternative approaches to advertising to get rid of the exploitation of women for capitalist gain: there must be a healing process. It is only through pedagogy and analysis that a new generation of women can be freed from the entrapments that these marketing machines have laid out for them.
astrid this post was simply awesome.
ReplyDeleteI was waiting for someone to comment on the new Nip Tuck ads...
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