Activity #8

According to Killing Us Softly 3, advertising sells values, images, concepts of love and sexuality, of romance and success, and normalcy. Advertising tells us who we are and who we should be. It affects women’s self esteem and how men feel about women’s images. Basically, women’s bodies have turned into objects. We should care about gendered messages in advertising because it creates a climate where there is widespread and increasing violence against women. Our ability to have authentic and freely chosen lives and nothing less is at stake.
In the Onslaught film, the message is that young girls are targeted to start learning what is beautiful so that they will want to be like all of the models and eventually buy into the products and eating habits and plastic surgery. The Evolution film shows us that beauty is unreachable and even with all the make-up and gorgeous models, Ads are still getting transformed through computer graphics. This tells us that even if we wanted to look like that, it is not possible. Our ideas about beauty have become so distorted because of the media. We have no way of knowing what is real or fake and the media has put out an image that we are expected to look like. Therefore, we strive to look like these people that simply do not exist.
The advertisement that I chose was for Companhia Athletica Health and Wellness. The ad is a commercial where a baby is crying so the man comes and picks up the baby and carries the baby and starts to rock it a little and then sits down. After they sit down the baby starts sucking on the man’s very out of shape pectoral like it were a breast. Then the commercial reads get in shape and then they’re company name.
The main idea of this commercial is to look skinny. However, this commercial is also selling the idea that it is the women’s job to get the baby when it starts crying. It is also portraying that men should be skinny and not out of shape or have “breasts” like women.
I really liked this activity because it taught me about how I should look at advertisements and how I should look at the ideal woman from now on. The Killing Us Softly 3 ended up being a very entertaining half hour which surprised me. Although I have seen the Evolution ad before, it was cool to see it again and it really is crazy to think about. The Onslaught film was depressing but necessary I felt. I almost feel as though I can look at any commercial or advertisement now and be able to break it down into a gender analysis. It is a scary thought that all of our ads have become so gendered and centralized around sex.