Wednesday, September 3, 2008

3 Personal Observations...



1. Clothing ads usually involve either taking off the clothing or not wearing any at all... how is this good advertising? For example, I saw a Levi's commercial the other day promoting their jeans. In this commercial, a guy and a girl are making out and breaking into an apartment or house as they strip each other's clothes off. They have their pants unbuttoned the whole time and eventually take off their jeans completely. Then the tag line is, "Live life unbuttoned...Levi's." So what, are you expected to buy their jeans so you can wear them unbuttoned and take them off?? I don't understand this.


2. There is an article from Good Housekeeping magazine (I believe) from the 1950's that talks about a woman's role in the home. It has a list of items such as dressing up nicely so you look fresh for your husband; always have a hot meal ready for him when he gets home; etc.

I think the way women were treated back then was like a personal slave to men... yet how are women portrayed now? Sure, we've got our feminist activists who stand up for equality and all that, but instead of being slaves, we're just sex objects. Our freedom and "equality" has, in my opinion, just given us a worse image. Now we are just something for men to look at, lust for, and win over. And the worst part is that we let them get away with it. Sure, women want to be treated with respect and equality, but I don't feel respected when a creepy old man looks me up and down in a store or at a bar. Maybe we could blame the men for being so lustful, but we put it out there for them on a silver platter. You can't hold a cookie in front of a child and tell them "No" when they try to get it. That's what women have become, though. I know some women don't like being called a "Lady" because they think it's demeaning and makes them feel like the expected stay-at-home wife from the 1950's, but I would rather have the door held open for me than be expected to carry heavy boxes or work construction just so I feel "equal" to men. So women really contradict ourselves.

And the media only enforces it. the 1950's article told women how to act and that's how they acted. Now, the pornographic magazines and Cosmo and Glamour tell women how to act--as sex objects--and we do. There are more teen pregnancies and eating disorders now than ever before, and I think the media plays a HUGE role in these problems in our society. Yet women feel empowered because they are desired by men. I think it's an unfortunate ongoing cycle that may never end. Ok, enough on that one.




3. One ad campaign that I am very glad to be seeing is the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and Self-Esteem Fund worldwide. This is a great effort to help women feel like they don't have to be tall, skinny, blonde, and tan to be considered "beautiful." I think women had a hard time feeling good about themselves when they didn't look like models, and I also think men had a hard time finding "normal" women beautiful when they didn't look like models. It is exciting to see campaigns such as this being launched in order to break the spell of false advertising in our society. (And by "false advertising" I mean making it look like you have to be a model to be pretty, as well as the airbrushing and touch-ups they do to pictures in ads.)




That's about it for now. :) Feel free to let me know what you think.... I just type what I'm thinking but I'm not afraid to be told I'm wrong.








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