Advertising surrounds us. It is not something that we could avoid, nor try to ignore. It is always there and always around us. Whether you're watching your friends' Snapchat stories or on your daily commute using public transit – ads will find a way into your peripheral vision. Ads don't only seek to target the money makers or those with spending opportunities; they begin bombarding us with their brand at a young age – even as early as when we come out of the womb.
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| Calvin Klein via Instagram |
Since checking social media has become a routine to most people nowadays, it is no wonder that advertisers would pay big money for their ads to be integrated into these popular applications. Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms used today. It is most commonly used amongst teenagers and young adults. Thus, the advertising companies' who wish to target this audience, have found the right place.
Running their own social media handles allows them to advertise for free and with the use of such provocative images, such as the one shown to the left, really works to grab the users' attention. This sure seems like a win-win for the company; however, the comments on this "I flash in #mycalvins" post (one of many posts that was part of Calvin Klein's #mycalvins ad campaign) reflect the viewers' reaction to this controversial image. "Trashy and repulsive"(kendra.gainz) and "Just so disgusting isn't it? And so misogynistic. Not to mention the girl looks 16. Hideously wrong on so many levels"(hybridsymphony) are just two of the thousands of comments left on this shocking post. Outraged by what looks to be child pornography (even though the model is of age) and the glaring sexual portrayal of this young woman, it is obvious who was in charge of organizing and approving this advertisement – definitely not a woman.
There is something to be said about the power in looking, and in this case, the camera acts as a lens and the eyes of the audience. The camera indeed holds all of the power. The bright yellow color scheme in this image both serves to draw our attention to the photograph and gives the model an innocent persona. The model was also portrayed proportionally large relative to the background of this image and from a low viewing angle. Although this would typically give the model a role of power and significance, the camera withdraws that power when it exposes what is under her dress. Additionally, if the model was given any "power" it would be in terms of sexuality depicted through what is uncovered from this unnatural viewing angle. As stated by Jean Kilbourne in Beauty and the Beast of Advertising, "Advertising's approach to sex is pornographic: it reduces people to objects and de-emphasizes human contact and individuality," and this is the exact concept that is shown in the above Calvin Klein ad.
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| Dunkin' Donuts via NY Daily News |
Not only are the advertisements found to be sexist, but they may also publish ads that are racist. This 2013 Dunkin' Donuts advertisement for chocolate doughnuts presents a fair-skinned woman who has transformed skin colors after eating the flavored doughnut. In the television commercial, they made up a fair-skinned woman to emulate the appearance of a black woman; therefore, this advertisement is an example of blackface. How could any company believe that this commercial would be acceptable? Or is it just the fact that the voice that was needed to prevent the distribution and all of the uproar on the ad was absent from the conversation?
So, who is it that truly gets to make these executive decisions on what content is put out there to the public? In regards to overly sexualized content and sexist images of women, it is no surprise that the team behind the advertisements are men. According to data compiled by Mic and Fortune, they found that "Of the apparel companies in the Fortune 500, zero have women CEOs" and "of all the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, only 5% are women." Those numbers prove that women are either completely absent or insignificant in those same industries that are able to market their message nationwide or even worldwide. If their advertisements are paid to be well-known across billions of people, their messages are created to affect their target audiences, (in either a positive or negative way depending on its purpose).
As Wykes and Gunter state in their book, The Media and Body Image, "What emerged was an influential set of ideas that linked patriarchal dominance of the family, the media industries and international capital to the representation of a very male ideal of female roles and looks." Thus, these women are posed and shaped by the man and for the man's pleasure. It's strange how women's clothes are made for women, but made and advertised by men. How would they know how women would like to dress or what women wish to see in ads? But then again, women's voices aren't taken into consideration in these cases. Since the media and the Fortune 500 companies are owned by men, not many women are able voice their opinions or desires. As a consequence, these standards only perpetuate the notion that reoccurs in our society: "Men act and women appear" (John Berger). To put it another way, men have to the power to look at women as well as are allowed the privileged to be in roles of higher social and economical power. Meanwhile, women are cast as domestic mothers whose role in society is to serve a man while minding their appearance and altering it for the purpose of complying to the man's desired beauty standards.
The numbers drop even lower when looking at how the black community is represented in the Fortune 500. Huffington Post predicted that "As of March 2015, there will be only four black CEOs in the Fortune 500," after studying how the numbers are dropping significantly each year. In 2012, there was an unacceptable amount of .8% of companies with black CEOs versus the 14.2% of the black population in the United States (Huffington).
These numbers are indeed not improving. Based on a pattern assembled by the University of California, Santa Cruz, the trajectory of new CEOs of color from 2000 through 2014 was at a standstill or slightly increased. On the other hand, the number of white women as CEOs have been increasing.
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| via University of California, Santa Cruz |
All in all, it seems like society's standards or formed opinions are highly influenced by these unavoidable advertisements. Who are to blame for some of the sexist, racist, and simply disrespectful images that we see all around us? The ones who truly have all the say are the media companies at the top of the ladder (possibly Fortune 500 businesses) that are organized predominately by white, straight, cisgender males. Will this trend of controversial advertisements continue to be prominent? Definitely, if the inequality and sexism continue to be prevalent in the workplaces of these firms. How could we as a society strive for more representation in our media? Support the businesses that aim for more diversity and voice your opinions and concerns on the controversial, or unpleasant, media published for the world to see.
Works Cited
Kilbourne, Jean. Beauty and the Beast of Advertising. 1999.
Wykes, Maggie, and Barrie Gunter. The Media and Body Image: If Looks Could Kill. SAGE, 2010.
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