ADVERTISEMENT NUMBER 3
This is a photograph of an attractive woman, in her mid twenties, lying across a light grey sofa which takes up the whole background of the photograph. The woman is slim and wearing make-up. She is wearing a dress which reveals a large proportion of her chest and her thigh is also revealed indicating that her dress is either very short or pulled up. Her dress has a distinctive pattern on it, very similar to the famous ‘Liberty’ design, a well-known store in London. She has long brown hair. Her eyes appear to be staring into space, she is not looking at the camera and it is not clear at to whether she is looking at anything. She has a serious expression on her face. Her lips are slightly pouted. Her one hand is behind her head. There is a tub of cream in the corner which is larger than life size. The cream could either represent body lotion or face cream. The tub is purple, very similar to the purple in her dress. The tub is open revealing the contents. The cream is bright white. The photo is close up.
Level one could also be described as what Barthes calls the ‘denotive’ level. ‘This refers to the common –sense, obvious meaning of the sign’ (Fiske, J Introduction to Communication Studies, 2nd Edition, pp 85-86)
LEVEL 2 (Meanings derived from contents)
ADVERTISEMENT NUMBER 1
The non-verbal communication in this advertisement tells a story.
Her overall facial expression looks negative, “Normally the expression of the ‘actor’ will be positive, contented, purposeful, delighted, happy” (Dyer, G. Advertising as Communication). Her expression connotes that she is uneasy, unhappy, almost frightened of the male, as if she has just been told off, like a child. “The expression is meant to underwrite the appeal of a product and arouse our emotions” (Dyer, G. Advertising as Communication). The ‘product’ in the advert is an issue which makes women unhappy and frightened; therefore her expression underwrites the appeal of the product.
Her eyes give the impression that she is trying to avoid eye-contact with the male, again, as if she has done something wrong and that she is unhappy. “The aversion of the eyes and lowering of the head can indicate withdrawal from a scene and symbolize dependency and submissiveness” (Dyer, G. Advertising as Communication). She gives the impression that one half or her doesn’t want to be there with the male and that she is not happy about something that has happened or is about to happen. The other half of her is too scared to leave the male in case something bad happens or she is too scared to be left on her own; she is dependant on the male and needs a man in her life. Without him she has nothing.
Her hands and her angle towards the male give the impression that she does not want to show any affection towards him. “How we angle ourselves to others is another way of sending messages about relationships” (Fiske, J. Introduction to Communication studies, second edition, pp 68).
He is directly facing her. “Facing someone can indicate either intimacy or aggression” (Fiske, J. Introduction to Communication studies, second edition, pp 68). This gives the impression that he is either aggressive and is about to do something to her or maybe he has already done something bad and wants to make things better by showing his affection towards her, to reassure her that everything is okay.
He is looking down at her symbolizing dominance and power. This gives the impression that she is less superior to him, as though she has a lower social status than him “Pose is also related to social position and status; hence women are often seen in a lower position than the man” (Dyer, G. Advertising as Communication). ‘One way in which social weight-power, authority, renown – is echoed expressively in social situations is through relative size, especially height’ (Goffman, E. Gender Advertisements)
He is holding her, as if he is protecting her, showing her who is in control and that she is his possession. He is taller than her conveying superior status, power and authority. ‘A male pictured with a female sometimes appears to employ an extended arm, in effect marking the boundary of his social property and guarding it against encroachment’ (Goffman, E. Gender Advertisements)
Her nakedness reveals she is very thin, fragile and weak looking, conveying that she is the weaker sex. The male is very muscular, showing his strength and power, the stronger sex.
His facial expression is serous and controlling, showing her who is boss. His facial expression contradicts his touch. He show affection with his touch but his facial expression shows no affection whatsoever. This raises the question as to whether or not his affection is genuine or a false act of communication?
It is not clear what is in the background because it is distorted. This may be because the advertiser wants the reader’s attention to be focused on the actors. It enables them to stand out. It appears that the background setting is outdoors. This may symbolise that many advertisements have un-real backgrounds, dream-like, exotic locations. This advertisement is trying to portray real life issues and there is nothing dream-like or exotic about violence. It may also be playing on the rhetorical trope, ‘irony’, because domestic violence normally goes on behind closed doors, where others cannot witness it.
The bottle of perfume is in colour, making it stand out from the black and white background. This may be because the text on the bottle carries the underlying message of the advertisement and the advertiser wants it to stand out. The text on the advert will be discussed later.
Perfume symbolises beauty, feminism and male attraction. This is ironic because men are portrayed as the villains in this advert. Victims of violence don’t want to attract men who have a violent nature. By beating her, he is taking away her femininity, her beauty and confidence, making her insecure; quite the opposite effect of what a perfume supposedly does for women.
The perfume bottle is larger than a real life perfume bottle but readers know that it represents a bottle of perfume because of what they know already (intertextuality). We assign truth to it. The truth value of a sign can be defined as ‘modality’.
The photograph being black and white creates the mood. It symbolizes that domestic violence is not a colourful, happy issue. It connotes the unhappiness caused, the darkness it brings into someone’s life as opposed to brightening it up. It could also symbolize that life isn’t as simple as black and white, as many adverts do.
Her hair symbolizes her femininity and beauty. Again something which is taken away when exposed to violence.
ADVERTISEMENT NUMBER 2
Advertisements 2 and 3 show a woman only. This could symbolize that women feel very alone when they suffer violence from men. It is an issue that women do not like to talk about.
The photograph in this advertisement is cropped; the reader only sees her face. This may be deliberate to draw attention to this part of her body, a part which conveys a lot about a woman’s beauty. Her face is very attractive and her beauty is a focus in the advert. This could suggest that a woman’s beauty is destroyed when they are subjected to violence. Their confidence and femininity is taken away from them.
Her hair is another sign symbolising beauty and femininity. “Female hair in particular is considered to be seductive and narcissistic, meaning an object of love or self-admiration” (Dyer, G. Advertising as communication). Her hair covers her face which symbolises men silencing women. Women should be seen and not heard. Violent men feel that women need to know their place in society and their voice doesn’t count. Her hair could also represent her hiding her emotions from people. It may also signify that she is using it to cover up her bruises.
To men she would be an object of desire, someone to demonstrate their superiority, power and dominance over by taking away important female values, destroying their confidence.
Her mouth could represent her being silenced by men, that she should not tell anyone about what has happened to her.
Her eyes could represent withdrawal from the scene, attempting to hide reality and block out the violence she is receiving.
Her lips are full, symbolizing sexuality, sensuality and femininity.
It seems that she is trying to avoid any attention off people, she is hiding her beauty. This may be because she doesn’t feel beautiful and confident anymore, it has been taken away from her. All the beautiful features she possesses are what make her feminine, and it’s the fact that she is a woman that has caused her all this unhappiness. In many advertisements, it seems that women want to be looked at; they want to exploit their beauty and femininity. In this advertisement it seems that the woman wants to do quite the opposite.
The bottle in the advertisement appears to be a bottle of shampoo, and I shall assume this because her hair is a main feature. Shampoo is linked with appearance, by washing your hair you improve your appearance. It is linked with beauty, maybe suggesting that her beauty has been washed away.
ADVERTISEMENT NUMBER 3
The woman in this advertisement is lying across a grey sofa, a colour related to sadness and misery portraying how a rape victim would feel.
The woman is very attractive, with long hair, and wearing make-up to enhance her beauty and femininity. She is wearing a dress which is very revealing showing off her slim, womanly figure. Her lips are slightly pouted and her pose seducing. Her whole appearance in the photograph represents her beauty, sexiness and femininity. She is an object of desire to men; they would fantasise over her and want to have sex with her. Rape happens when men’s sexual desires and needs take over and when they want to exploit their power and control over women.
Women who have been raped often feel that they encouraged it because of the way they presented themselves as looking sexy, etc. However, is the advert trying to convey the message that women should be able to wear what they want and not be subjected to such violence?
The pattern in her dress is very similar to the famous ‘Liberty’ design. ‘Liberty’ means ‘freedom’ which could represent that women should be able to express themselves freely in what they wear or maybe it means freedom from the traditional controlling dominating males?
She seems to be staring into mid air; she looks distant, detached from the situation. She could be thinking about what has happened, going over it in her head. Many adverts have the female looking at the camera, as if they are looking at the reader, which is often a male. ‘As John Berger has argued in relation to the portrayal of women in publicity, ‘men act and women appear. Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at’ (Dyer, G. Advertising as Communication, pp 92). Women like to be admired by men, but this would not be the case if they had just been raped. They would feel threatened by it and this may be why she isn’t looking at anyone.
Whether the cream is face or body cream, both are related to women and beauty. If it is body cream it could represent that the woman’s body has been used and exploited by men to exert their control and power over them. A woman’s body is precious to them. The cream being white could represent cleanliness and purity because the colour white often has these connotations. This could represent that a victim of rape feels dirty after being raped and that their purity has been taken away from them.
In all three advertisements, the women are very attractive and very slim. Women who view the advertisement would like to look like these women, as though these women represent an ‘ideal look’, however, in society, most women do not look like this, therefore the advertisements do not reflect reality and the real world, which is one of the key messages in the advertisements.
The non-verbal communications in all three advertisements are examples of presentational codes. They can also be described as indexical signs because people have learnt throughout their lives that certain gestures etc are associated with a certain meaning.
Level two could be described as what Barthes describes as the ‘connative’ level. “Connotation is the interaction that occurs when the sign meets the feelings or emotions of the users and the values of their culture” (Fiske, J. Introduction to Communication Studies, 2nd edition, pp 86). It is the meanings attached to the signs.
All three advertisements have nearly the same ‘textual anchorage’ which control the preferred readings of the images. Visual images are ‘polysemous. The words in the advertisements help ‘fix’ the floating chain of signifieds in such a way to avoid aberrant decoding of the message. ‘Barthes (1961) calls the caption a ‘parasitic message designed to connote the image, to quicken it with one or more second-order signifieds’. He recognises that connotation gives the reader a greater range of possible meanings than does denotation, and that words can be used to narrow this range or to close off parts of it. (Fiske, J. Introduction to Communication Studies. 2nd Edition, pp 110)
The text in each advertisement starts with the line “In the real world…..” A statistical fact then follows about the number of women subjected to violence.
The text is written on the ‘products’ in the advertisements in order to draw attention to the message and maybe because it is a place where people will immediately look to see what the actual product is.
The anchorage could connote a number of things:
- In the real world violence towards women happens
- Advertisements normally convey glamorise unrealistic lifestyles when in reality, life isn’t this glamorous. This is reflected in the locations used in advertisements and the people represented in the advertisements. Advertisements don’t reflect reality.
The statistical facts shown in the advertisements make the advertisements more believable and force the reader to face reality. There is a high degree of modality.
The advertisements use visual rhetoric, the dominant one being ‘opposition’. Opposition is when “a single image can bring together elements which are in opposition to each other” (Dyer, G, Advertising as Communication, pp 165). The advertisements bring together pleasant things such as perfume and beauty and things which bring happiness and horrible things, violence and rape.
LEVEL THREE (Ideologies)
Level three could also be said to be the ideological level or what Barthes describes as the ‘mythological’ level. “A myth, for Barthes, is a culture’s way of thinking about something, a way of conceptualising or understanding it” (Fiske, J. Introduction to Communication Studies, Second Edition, pp 88). Ideologies and myths exist before the photograph.
The three levels of meaning suggested by Panofsky in his iconographic analysis and Barthes’s theory of the two orders of signification relate to Ferdinand de Saussure’s influential dyadic model of meaning. (See figure 1)
The signifier is the signs image as we perceive it. It is a material vehicle. The signifier relates to Panofsky’s first level in iconographic analysis, it is what the sign is. It also relates to Barthes’s first order of signification, denotation.
The signified is the mental concept to which the sign refers. It is the meaning which the signifier refers to. The signified relates to Panofsky’s second level in iconographic analysis, it is what the sign means to the reader. The meanings are derived from the reader’s culture. The signified also relates to Barthes’s second order of signification, which is connotation, the terms Barthes’s uses to describe one of the three ways in which signs work in the second order of signification.
Although Saussure spends comparatively very little time on it, he does touch on the relationship between signifier and signified and how they have an external meaning which relates to the ideologies and influences in society’s way of thinking. He calls this ‘signification’. Signification relates to Panofsky’s third level in iconographic analysis and to Barthes’s myth, the second of Barthes’s three ways in which a sign works in the second order. Ideology is at the heart of myth which is chiefly the vale-system of those at the top of society.
A model has been devised which shows how all these theories and models developed by different people overlap. (See figure 2)
CONCLUSION
“Far from turning society upside down, the majority of advertisers, I would suggest, mirror society. It is however, generally a distorted mirror. As a result, society looks at what it see’s in the glass, does not like it, and with a certain justification blames the mirror” (White, R. Advertising, what it is and how to do it, third edition)