Gender and Sexuality Essay PDF

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Essay on the representation of gender and sexuality within advertisements...

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Kieran Coleman MEDI 501: Critical Dialogues BA Hons Media Arts Faculty of Arts and Humanities Tutor: Ines Rae & Mark James

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It has been argued that the display of gender and sexuality has been one of the most all pervading themes in advertising. Discuss with reference to historical and contemporary examples considering how changing technologies have impacted on such spectacles?

In this essay I will be talking about how it has been argued that the display of gender and sexuality has been one of the most all-pervading themes in advertising. This will include me linking this essay to historical references and contemporary examples which I will be considering how technologies changing has impacted this. The First Part of my essay , I will be talking about the display of gender and sexuality in advertising from the 21st century.

Figure 1: Car Ad From “Representation of Women in Advertisement”.

In the article “ Representation of Women in Advertisement” by “ Sunita Kumar” it has a section called “ Qualitative Analysis” on pg 26 it states talking about the advertisement that is down on the bottom left hand side of the page where the car advertisement focuses on women being something that can be bought by anyone that has a car rather than highlighting the features of the car. in this aspect we can assume that the clothing and the position that the women are positioned in the car reiterates the universal belief that men are the superior sex. When we look at the image from the article we can also see that the way the woman's hand are tied up and the clothing that they are wearing can represent that men treat women like they have no cost and that they are worthless, or even that women can be described as maids or even someone who works and does everything that the men tell them to do. Comparing this advertisement to another contemporary example such as “ Durex: Wegasm Car” advertisement we can see in both of the advertisements there is a clear 2

resemblance between the both such as the way the advertisements portray the female gender within the advertisement.

Figure 2 : Durex: Wegasm Car Advertisement.

The Resemblances that are in the two advertisements are different apart from the sexual aspects. In both advertisements there is the use of sexual exploitation in women. The way that this is portrayed is that in the “ Durex: Wegasm Car” Advertisement we see that there is people’s arms and legs coming out of both corners of the car which can mean many things but the main reason that comes to mind is that there is a sexual feeling that is presented in the advertisement.

The fact that there is only hands and legs of people there isn’t a clear understanding of if there are women in the car of the advertisement. In the advertisement it does show a clear stereotypical view that the car in the advertisements is being used for sexual incentives or even sexual acts. Due to this the point of the advertisement can come across as misconstrued down to the fact that the car advertisement can come across as only men or women that want to do sexual acts or sexual incentives can buy this car or that this car is only used for sexual acts or incentives. In the article “Sexual Appeals In advertising have the ability to grab the customers attention” pg 37 we can see that the text describes how advertisements best grabs the 3

customers attention but the one that they suggest is that sexual appeals in advertisements have the ability to grab the audience’s attention. When linking this to the two advertisements that I have used, there is a huge viewing of sexual appeals within the advertisements. If we look at the Durex: Wegasm Car Advertisement, we can see that the sexual appeals within this advertisement is that there is legs and hands coming out of both rears of the car. This can mean a lot of things when we think about it but if we link this to the title of the advertisement there is a viewing of what this advertisement can be portraying. When looking back at the text “Sexual Appeals in advertising have the ability to grab the customers attention” I believe this to be true because if we were to look at an advertisement such as this one below.

Figure 3: Killer XK – Sex Appeal

This advertisement is the best that I feel best describes how advertisements can grab the viewers’ attention. In the advertisement, there are a few characteristics that grab the attention of the viewer such as the way the two people are positioned within the advertisement. In this advertisement, we can see that there are a woman and a man. The man has got blue jeans along with a blue denim shirt which is open where we can see his chest along with the man’s jeans being undone for the viewer to see his underwear where we can see the brand name called “killer”. When we look at the woman we can see that the woman 4

has got her hands on the man’s jeans which seem to look like she is undoing his jeans and having her hands close to the man’s underwear. Due to this taking place in the advertisement we can see that there is a clear viewing of this advertisement grabbing the viewers attention with the act of sexual appeal towards the viewer.

The next part of this essay I will be talking about the changes in advertising towards gender and sexuality.

Figure 4 : A Traditional Mom in a Carnation Breakfast Ad. ( Taken from Kim Sheeham “Controversies in Contemporary Advertising”, Gender and Advertising Chapter 7 , Pg 92).

In this advertisement taken from (Sheeham , Kim 2004 pg 92) article named “ Controversies in contemporary advertising , chapter 7 , gender and advertising , we can see that there is a massive change compared to the advertisements that I have used as examples before. In this advertisement we can see that there is a woman and a boy which could be her son where he is drinking a drink. Above the boy’s head there is a quote stating “Here’s how I know my kids are starting there day right “. This advertisement can come across as that in the relationship of parents the mother is the key person responsible for the child and making sure that the child is well. In this advertisement there is an attitude toward the viewer showing the audience that men are responsible for doing the hard work during the day, going to work and providing for the house hold but the mother has one use which is staying in the house making sure that it’s clean and making sure that the children are taken care off.

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Figure 5: “ An Ad for Tom Ford Fragrances Feature Models With Beautiful Bodies”. (Taken from Kim Sheeham “Controversies in Contemporary Advertising”, Gender and Advertising Chapter 7 , Pg 96).

When comparing this advertisement to the one above , there is a difference between how the producers of the advertisement’s portray the genders in each one. For instance in this advertisement we can see that the advertisement is showing a clear symbolic sexual viewing towards the audience in the respect of that there is a man and women naked in the shower washing each other’s bodies.

Comparing this to the “ A Traditional Mom in a Carnation Breakfast Ad” there is a huge difference between the way that they portray gender within the advertisements. In the traditional mom in a carnation breakfast ad, they portray the women gender as the person who stays at home and the person who is responsible to look after the children while the man goes to work and provides for the family unlike in the Tom Ford Advertisement they portray the genders as equals because of them being able to be in the shower together and not be criticized. For the third part of this essay I would like to talk about what has changed between these advertisements and the advertisements from the 21 st century.

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Figure 6: Axe “ Get Dirty” Ad: A Negative Representation Of Women’s Sexuality in Advertisements

In this advertisement called “ Get Dirty” from The series “ Sex Sells” we can see that there is a massive change between the advertisements in say the 1940’s to the advertisements that are shown now. As we can see in this advertisement there is a clear representation of sexual acts within the image. On one side we have got a young man who is showering with the brand’s shower gel but on the other side we can see that there is a women who is showering with cream. The reason that there is a sexual action within the image is that people can think that the use of cream and women is a sexual image.

In the advertisement we can see that the advertisement has been split into two section where the left hand side of the advertisement we have got a teenage man using the product called “ AXE” and on the other side we have got a women using whipped cream.

What I find interesting in this advertisement is that we can see that the image has got two sections but underneath the advertisement we can see that there is a title for each side such as the left hand side is called “ The Cleaner You Are “ which represents the teenage man washing himself with the product but then on the right hand side the title has been called “ The Dirtier You Get “ and there is a Women using Whipped Cream to shower herself. The changes between this advertisement and the advertisements in 1950’s onwards are that in the 1950’s advertisements we see that the use of men and women are strictly about 7

the women being in the house watching and cleaning while the men are at work providing for the household but in advertisements now men and women are treated exactly the same and doesn’t have any prejudice between what men and women stand for and what they are meant to do and represent unlike in advertisements in the 50’s.

Figure: 7 : Axe Gravity Ad: A Negative Representation of Women’s Sexuality in Advertisements

In this advertisement we can see that there is a automatic view of a sexual nature within the advertisement due to the way the women is dressed with her blue silk dress and her silver high heels and her pants between her ankles. Due to this many people can see this as a sexual action towards the audience. Figure 8 : Escape by Calvin Klein Perfume Advertisement.

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Lastly I would like to talk about this advertisement called “ Escape” by Calvin Klein. In this advertisement we can tell that there is a clear representation of a sexual nature within the advertisement from the position of the man and women in the advertisement and them about to kiss and the way they are positioned against the wall. This can show different things to different viewers but the way that the advertisement is laid out does show to me as a sexual nature. Finally, I would like to talk about my response to the question of the essay title that was given to me for this task. In my opinion I believe that gender and sexuality has been displayed a lot within advertisements weather this is billboard poster advertisements to advertisements that we see on the tv but this hasn’t always been the case in advertisements in the past such as since the 1800’s there has been a lot of sexual imagery that has been used to promote and advertise a wide amount of different products in the world but it has been interesting to find out that in this era women were the main choice for advertisements that appeal towards men and women in the audience. When we look at all the advertisements that I have used and decided to reference in my essay we can see that there is a massive change between the years that the advertisements have been published. For instance in the advertisements that have been published in the years of 1950 we can see that the display of gender and sexuality is shown as somewhat abusive and sexist because of the men being able to go to work and provide for the family but the women has to stay at home to maintain the family home to be clean and for the family children to be looked after. Reference to this would be the advertisement referenced in this advertisement called A Traditional Mom in a Carnation Breakfast Ad. ( Taken from Kim Sheeham “Controversies in Contemporary Advertising”, Gender and Advertising Chapter 7 , Pg 92).

When we look at the advertisements that has been published post 1990 we can see that they have been showing a lot of sexual action with in them such as the durex advertisement when they show sexual action of legs and arms being out of each side of the doors of the car and allowing the audience to think what this could be about. 9

The fact that since the 2000’s the public have now been able to be shown advertisements in a large form of different media’s such as tv, internet, movies and so much more. This can be a main reason that technologies have had a impact on such spectacles because when we look at advertisements in the 1950’s people only came across them in newspapers and on billboards or shop windows but if we look at the present day people can find advertisements anywhere from looking on social media to listening to the latest news on the radio. Due to this lots of people these days can see the advertisements anywhere because we are surrounded by lots of technologies for us to have access to these advertisements that has been published in the world. Due to this I feel that gender and sexuality has been one of the most all pervading themes in advertising because the use of gender and sexuality stretches beck all the way to the 1800’s. when looking at the advertisements back in the 1800 no one was ever able to see them unless they went out or if they were reading the newspaper but these days they are everywhere in all publications and social media. So when looking back on this and when me answering the question that has been proposed to me for this essay I can now state what my view is on the essay title. I believe that in advertising and when looking at the advertisement there is a lot of use of gender and sexuality in the advertisement because of the way that they are trying to portray the product such as If we look at the “ Escape” advertisement by Calvin Klein there is a massive use of gender and sexuality within the advertisement because the ad is trying to state that is a man or women uses this product then they will be able to attract someone. So when answering the question that was given to me I believe that advertisements use gender and sexuality a lot but the use of changing technologies from newspapers to digital formats in the 21st century there is a massive impact of these sort of spectacles . Harvard Referencing

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Women's Sexuality In Popular Culture. . Sex Sells. [online] Available at: https://womensexualityinpopculture.wordpress.com/sex-sells/ [Accessed 1 Dec. 2019]. Schneider, L. (2019). The Overuse of Sexual Imagery in Advertising | Beaufort County Now. [online] BCN. Available at: https://beaufortcountynow.com/post/383 [Accessed 1 Dec. 2019]. An Ad For Tom Ford Fragrances Featuring Models with Beautiful Bodies. (n.d.). [image]. Sheeham, K. (n.d.). Controversies in Contemporary Advertising. Gender and Advertising - Chapter 7, p.96. Sheeham, K. (n.d.). Controversies in Contemporary Advertising. Gender and Advertising - Chapter 7, p.92. Killer XK - Sex Appeal. (n.d.). [image]. Axe Gravity ad : a Negitive Representation of Women's Sexuality in Advertisements. (2019). [image]. Axe Gravity ad : a Negitive Representation of Women's Sexuality in Advertisements. (2019). [image]. Durex: Wegasm Car Advertisement.. [image].

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