All Hail The Mighty Advertisement

Women in the Media

Professor: Doris Cacoilo

3/18/17 

Hussein Farraj

Throughout the early developments of business there was some kind of marketing strategy to get the consumers into the producers stores. Whether if it was through the word of mouth, painted on a wall, on a street billboard or even suggested from your best friend, you would think about buying a product. Today advertisements are placed onto the web were most of the worlds consumers go to. Algorithms are set to market anything you research, for you to see some relatable advertisement in hopes that you would buy something. The field of advertising has gone too far because of its sexist, racist, and unfair basis towards beauty. We live in a world were the younger generation has more access to sources like the internet and are exposed to beauty standards that are just unfair for most to adapt to. Boys are expected to be huge with muscle, while girls are supposed to be rail thin with lighter features. Here is a site that  proves that in-order to have a great healthy body you need the balance of both cardio and weightlifting. Here 

"Ideal Standard of Beauty"

is an advertisement of a group of women marketing makeup in their underwear. What kind of message does that send to young women everywhere? That you have to be white/light skinned, thin, and almost completely naked to be beautiful. To the bottom right is a man who markets protein powder for men and sells "Big Bad Muscle". The figure not only looks disgusting but brainwashes men to believe that women love this verse of men better. The sad part of this is that both groups just want to be accepted for who they are but because of media sources like news, youtube, and many more websites allow constant advertisements; the younger generation believes this to be the norm of humans. The idea is for men to hold power physically, mentally, and  economically over women. Women just have to look nice and be subservient to the beast below. The purpose of these ads are to strike an emotional vain in the boy or girl who wants to be beautiful/handsome or liked 

"Ideal standard for Masculinity" 

by others. "Advertisements sell values, images,
and concepts of success and worth, love and 
sexuality, popularity and normalcy. They tell
us who we are and who we should be."
(Kilbourne-BeautyBeast). What Kilbourne is 
explaining is that these ads give guidelines to human behavior and look. Not allowing any individuality and putting people into social boxes. While these companies become richer, we all follow lifestyles that are fake to our truest personalities. It is as if we are all living a lie! The most disturbing thing is that the concept of these images are found  throughout popular culture. For example, in music today women are seen as sex objects and men are conditioned to be violent and care only about money. Take the artist Machine Gun Kelly. He talks about graphically having intercourse with a women and selling drugs. Another example is Kim Kardashian, who markets multiple beauty products and sell this idea of beauty to women. Teaching young girls to love the way they look and more on education. I find her to be very hypocritical because she ended up just getting famous through her looks and making a sex tape. "The image is artificial and can only be achieved artificially(even the "natural 

Artificial Beauty 

look" requires much preparation and expense)." 
(Kilbourne-BeautyBeast). Today all beauty is being artificially made. Women looking so far off to what it means to be normal. I feel bad for all men, including myself who are confused to what we would like. Is it actually someones personality or is it their looks. Even if its a women's look, what is real or what is fake. Same goes for the opposite way when it come to women viewing men.  

Companies just want you're money because they know your looks matter to you. One commercial that does want you're money are the ones that try to fix you with some expensive product. For example, acne products. Once a hormonal event for teens has been backlashed with advertising as a problem for social teens. "Ads work in part by generating dissatisfaction and offering images of transformation, of a new you. This particular ad promotes dissatisfaction with traditional images and presents a new image of a more beautiful woman, a new lifestyle and identity." 
(Kellner-ReadingImages).

Before and After

I consume multiple outlets of media but the ones I think I go to the most are Vice News, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and the show Vikings. The ownership and the advertising effects each and every single person. For example, Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube all have pop-ups ads to every new search you do. For Vikings its always some mens shaving cream advertised and Vice has random stuff. Do I believe that this could change, NO! The reason why is that these companies are making millions of dalliers off of people emotions from the shows or content. Whether its envy to become that character to thinking its a cool product. Marketing is over a million dollar industry and once money gets involved, nothing else matters to these companies. 

Work Cited:

-Kilbourne, Jean. "Beauty... and the beast of advertising." (1990).

-http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/fitness_articles.asp?id=773(Website)

-Kellner, Douglas. "Reading images critically: Toward a postmodern pedagogy." Postmodernism, feminism, and cultural politics (1991): 60-82.