Representation of women

1.
In aspects such as sexual orientation and gender, Mistry suggests that advertising has increasingly employed images and also that there are more and more homosexual images everywhere that are far removed from depictions homosexuality as comic relief.


2.
Acting as a 'traditional' woman was somehow ideal and empowering which created the foundations to 'what a female should be like'. This included things like taking care of the children, staying at home to cook and clean, having to look a certain way, always had to have hair and makeup done etc.


3.
Women were expected to constantly uphold certain expectations like wearing make-up and dressing 'feminine'. This was so heavily spoken about that it made females sound like objects awaiting someone to come and take control over them. This lead to an increase of females being shown in inappropriate dressing doing very questionable actions.


4.
The theory of 'male gaze' was said by the theorist Laura Mulvey. The male gaze means that adverts are created in order to attract the typical male which was to see women as sexual objects.


5.
The 'proliferation of distinct images' were labelled as the 'New Woman' which was a start to changing the reality of women's social position and the influence of the women's movement'.


6.
Yes people started to show women in a better light compared to older adverts, however, this can be argued to a certain extent as traditional stereotypes of having to look good ad dress 'feminine' in order to be human. This means that times have not really changed in a majorly significant way but there is minute progress within it.


7.
Barthel suggest that there is no major threat towards male power in our current day and age.


8.
Richard Dyer suggests that images like the Dior Midnight Poison Elixir advert show a misinterpretation of women's liberation. He claims that agencies attempt to take a new attitude towards their campaigns which often miss the point which results in an overly aggressive sexuality and a very liberated coy sexiness. This means that the advert has this woman who is making herself look good for men's sexual advances while thinking she is 'liberated' in doing so.



Media Magazine: Beach Bodies V Real Women (MM54):

1.
The 'Beach Bodies' campaign was an advert for a weight loss protein shake.


2.
The tag line for the advert said 'Are you beach body ready' with an image of a very stereotypical eurocentric beauty standard looking female who was white, blonde and slim. This caused controversy as it sent a message that the only beach body ready are female that look like her.


3.
The advert suggested that unless you look like the female in the advert, you were not beach body ready and that they should all go and make themselves look like her.


4.
Huge numbers of complaints were sent to protein world for the message they were sending out to people which caused them to have to take it down later on.


5.
The Dover real campaign was one of the most successful campaigns released which 'features real women with real bodies of all races and ages'. The difference between how they get message of beauty compared to protein world was day and night. Dove's advert said diversity whereas protein worlds speaks the opposite.


6.
Social media has grown rapidly and immensely over the couple of years. More and more platforms are being made to allow companies to have their adverts be shown there. This includes the adverts on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter etc. People can now access adverts on their phone, computer, tablet laptop, shops, streets, TV etc.


7.
Zoonen's theory stated that he questions whether times have really moved on that much as the protein world advert can back this up. People say that females are less pressured to look a certain way but Protein Worlds advert shows that people still believe or have the ideology of how a female 'should look'. By having a very stereotypical 'chick' wearing a bikini bang in the middle of the advert is like a message to all females to look like this or else you're not good enough. This shows that pressures on females to look a certain way are still high.


8.
I think that representations of women have changed but no where near enough to where they should be at. Yes, females are getting seen in different lights where we see females in positions we wouldn't get to see 50-60 years ago. Even though women can be seen as high status, well payed CEO's or managers, they still are expected to look good, wear make up and have a certain body type. So arguably, they are still being expected to do this and that which lead to my opinion that representations of females had not gone too far.