Formal Paper II: Rough Draft

Dear Interested Reader,

What is more appealing, a beautiful body or a beautiful mind? Most would want to say a beautiful mind, but unfortunately this day and age it just so happens that the latter of the two is the more common answer whether one says it or not. Our society is fueled by individual image and appeal while it should be driven by individual creativity and uniqueness. It is well known that current media plays a very large role on the lives of everyone that it touches (specifically young adolescents who are still learning who they are), and needless to say, that nowadays the media finds a way to touch just about everyone’s life in one way or another. Billboards, magazines, commercials, buses, milk cartons, blimps, t-shirts, and even pens are just a few of the items and methods that major corporations use to spread their logos and get their names into peoples’ minds in order to make a sale. These methods may work for their initial purpose, but it is clear that they have many very negative outcomes towards the visualization and importance of the female gender and their potential roles in society.

Advertisers draw upon the inner desires in people, and then they play off these desires by creating a sense of appeal in the ads in which they design. At first it seems like they are being creative, but when looking at current day ads it is clear that consequently their methods objectify men and women but specifically women much more often. The mainstream structure of current day advertisements appeal to sexual desire, which is believed to be innate in every human being, and by playing off this desire ads create an image of physical beauty and sexiness in order to grasp the attention of those who see their ads. Now that sex in advertising has been so consistent it gives viewers the idea that it is all that matters and in order to be happy they must look for physical beauty rather than inner beauty in their significant others.

Distinguished author Jean Kilbourne has written many articles pertaining to this exact topic and one in particular “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt” talks about some similar points. For example Kilbourne’s opening sentences, “Sex in advertising is more about disconnection and distance than connection and closeness. It is also more often about power than passion, about violence than violins” (575). Kilbourne sets the stage by drawing a major parallel in ads and pornography, trying to degrade the value of the ads themselves and point out the clear difference in the feelings and ideals in which they present. This is where the line for objectification begins. Another article written by Naomi Rockler-Gladen titled “Media Objectification of Women” gives a clear definition of what media objectification is, “Media that objectify women portray women as physical objects that can be looked at and acted upon-- and fail to portray women as subjective beings with thoughts, histories, and emotions” (Rockler-Gladen 1). So by advertisers using sex in advertising and portraying women as objects diminishes their unique values and puts all women on the same level, which is that of unimportance and value based solely on sexual image.