Many commercials have a subconscious sexual message that not a lot of people notice while others has a noticeable sexual meaning, especially if it sexualize women. “Women have been reduced to their body and the female body has been dismembered, commodified, and sexually objectified in the media for entertainment and marketing purposes (Bartky 1990; Basow 1992) (Jhally,745) One example I have in mind, is a commercial about a car called, “Fiat 500 Abarth” that is seen to be highly sexualized. In this advertisement, a man is walking down a street and sees a beautiful foreign woman in a sexy fitted dress. As the man stares, the woman notices and yells at him in her own foreign language. She gets angry but then seductively talks to him as she is getting closer to him. As he leans in for a kiss, he wakes up from his fantasy and sees a car. He once again fantasied having the car for himself, as he imagines himself driving the car in a high speed and taking full control of the car. These types of commercials are, “in Jhally’s words, to “see how our culture teaches us to be men and women” (Jhally, 745).
To start off, first of all, this commercial is mostly focus on males because it is a stereotype that cars love cars and women, but women don’t. Secondly, the woman in the commercial is seen as a sexualized female had no sexual control towards a male. Jhally has a quote from his article called, “The Critical Eye: Whose Fantasy is This? Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex, and Power in Music Video” that says, “women as nymphomaniacs, desperately in need of a man, in the roles of cheerleaders, nurses, teachers, maids, librarians, and most notably strippers” (746). Thirdly, for commercial about cars and women, at first thought, it seems like women and cars do not have anything in common. Yet, there is a hidden cultural assumption that all men find women and cars the same. It seems like the television advertisement has taught men to perceive women as sexual objects rather than people. Men, when there are attracted to a woman, would look at their physical features. After they paid attention to their body, they then approach the woman to get to know them on a personal level. It is also the same when men look at cars. Men will first look at the beauty of a car and then looks at the parts of the car like the shape, the colors, the curves, and the way it moves or breaks. It excites men to find out what else the car has to offer which is why men looks inside the car, get comfortable with it, feel the interior, take control and drives the car for a test drive. All of this treatment was taught by society for men to know how to treat a woman.
The advertisers knew what they were thinking in how to approach to the car commercial because they already knew the norm of how many people think and want us to think. The advertisers knew that sex sells if it were approached in the right way. The assumptions due to this commercial are that men think about sex and beautiful women most of the time and women, in this case, foreign women are sexy, confident, strong, nice figure and highly seductive. Yet, they are seen as objectives rather than a person with feelings and opinions. This commercial is a good representation on how society wants males to think. Overall, society has full control of people’s media, norms, rules and thoughts on sexuality, people cannot change because people know they are being manipulated into buying something you don’t want or need. Just like, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer said in their article, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them (24).
To start off, first of all, this commercial is mostly focus on males because it is a stereotype that cars love cars and women, but women don’t. Secondly, the woman in the commercial is seen as a sexualized female had no sexual control towards a male. Jhally has a quote from his article called, “The Critical Eye: Whose Fantasy is This? Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex, and Power in Music Video” that says, “women as nymphomaniacs, desperately in need of a man, in the roles of cheerleaders, nurses, teachers, maids, librarians, and most notably strippers” (746). Thirdly, for commercial about cars and women, at first thought, it seems like women and cars do not have anything in common. Yet, there is a hidden cultural assumption that all men find women and cars the same. It seems like the television advertisement has taught men to perceive women as sexual objects rather than people. Men, when there are attracted to a woman, would look at their physical features. After they paid attention to their body, they then approach the woman to get to know them on a personal level. It is also the same when men look at cars. Men will first look at the beauty of a car and then looks at the parts of the car like the shape, the colors, the curves, and the way it moves or breaks. It excites men to find out what else the car has to offer which is why men looks inside the car, get comfortable with it, feel the interior, take control and drives the car for a test drive. All of this treatment was taught by society for men to know how to treat a woman.
The advertisers knew what they were thinking in how to approach to the car commercial because they already knew the norm of how many people think and want us to think. The advertisers knew that sex sells if it were approached in the right way. The assumptions due to this commercial are that men think about sex and beautiful women most of the time and women, in this case, foreign women are sexy, confident, strong, nice figure and highly seductive. Yet, they are seen as objectives rather than a person with feelings and opinions. This commercial is a good representation on how society wants males to think. Overall, society has full control of people’s media, norms, rules and thoughts on sexuality, people cannot change because people know they are being manipulated into buying something you don’t want or need. Just like, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer said in their article, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them (24).