An introduction to Advertisement analysis. In the article Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body, the male body as a public image (in advertising more specifically) is thoroughly discussed.
An introduction to Advertisement analysis
What is an advertisement? Is it a form of communication that allows others to spread their message? An advertisement can be used for many things. From trying to sell a product, to trying to capture an audience’s attention, to portraying the ideal man or woman, advertisements are merging all of those forms of communication into one. Throughout our world, we see many different print advertisements, commercials, and other forms of sales pitches; we learn what the current trends are in society. For example, if there was an ad for the newest Reebok shoes, everyone would flock to the store to get them because they are the newest fads which must be acquired. However, if that shoe advertisement depicted a pretty woman wearing skimpy clothes wearing the shoes, there would be many more men going to the store rather than women. The advertisements in modern days seem to be much less sexist or chauvinist than their mid 1900s predecessors. Why is that? Well it is because people view others differently now; they view them equally.
The principle of gender not only defines who and what we are, it also defines the way we are seen through the eyes of others. The advertisers not only look to sell their product, but to capture a specific audience by depicting men or women (in most ads) in different settings and concepts. Each ad means something because the advertiser wants it to mean something. The advertiser often wants the ad to depict what a man or woman should wear, look like, and even behave like. After scouring the ad for a suitable advertisement, I finally found one that suited the topic I was going to be pursuing in this writing. The ad, from a fashion designing company based in Italy, one first glance simply shows a man and a woman standing side-by-side. After a closer look, it can be seen that the hands of both the persons are tied to the wall or some type of fabric. However, the most surprising thing about this clothing fashion ad was the way that the man and the woman were posing. The man was posing in a stiff position, almost as if he was showing his dominance over others, while the woman has her hands above her head, almost as if she was submitting to someone. From that pose, one can assume that the woman is being shown as a passive, submissive figure. From the pretense that the man is shown in, it can be assumed that the man is more demanding, dominant, and rigid. This did not surprise me however. Most advertisements seen in contemporary times are directed in such a way that the males are shown as superior. Advertisers, when dealing with both sexes, will try to position the men in such a way to show their dominance, as seen in my advertisement. This depiction of how a man looks like, often leads to young male children to distinguish what it is to be a man and woman. In ads which only contain women, they are shown as nothing more than mere sexual objects. This form of advertisement serves to show women what they should look like and men how their women should look like. The women are simply depicted as objects of desire which are used hook potential customers.
