How do magazine advertisements represent women in order to sell products focusing on advertisements in Vogue and Look magazine?
The representation of women in advertising tends to vary depending on the product being sold and who the audience for the product is. I will investigate how women are represented in order to sell products focusing on the October 2013 issue of Vogue and the November 2013 issue of Look magazine. In order to sell a particular product, women are sold a set of ideologies in which they can aspire to, whether it be looks, or appeal to men. This is evidenced as "Advertisements -- also known as ads -- are the vehicle in which companies and the advertising industry drive their message to consumers. The goal is to motivate consumers through ads to buy goods or services, change their thinking or create excitement. " [1] These values in the advertisements appear to sell products successfully as women aspire to be like the flawless women they see in the adverts. Firstly, I will investigate how women are represented in advertisements and whether they reflect women in reality or what Jean Baudrillard called a hyper reality. I will also analyse how the use of ideologies and constructed representations can sell products in magazines. Often, it seems that it is not the product being sold but the attributes of the women selling the products. Lastly, I will look at the effects of representing women in a particular way and whether it could lead to a false ideology and expectations from both men and women of what a woman should look and act like. Jean Kilbourne says "The ideal image of beauty is becoming more extreme and impossible than ever before"[], is this adding to the pressure to conform to the beauty ideal? I will investigate these aims by applying different theories such as Laura Mulveys - The Male Gaze where women are objectified for mens pleasure, Postmodern and Feminist theory and the Hypodermic Needle Theory.
Some areas of advertising are becoming increasingly more constructed therefore meaning females are being represented inaccurately more and more. Could this be down to the shocking reality that "Women hold only 5% of clout positions in mainstream media. -Men hold 95% of high up positions in mainstream media meaning they have the mist control about what information is fed into the audience and how constructed the images we see are."[2] As a result of the overwhelming proportion of men that edit and publish media, there is a higher chance that the audience is being fed images of women that men prefer to see. Men are likely to construct images of their 'ideal woman', an ideal that women can aspire to, rather that representing women in a way that they are viewed in reality. Women
are often represented as domestic or are objectified for men's
viewing pleasure. Often, In advertising we see an overwhelming representation of women as sex objects. Wolfs view is that "the images of women used by the media present women as sex objects to be consumed by what Mulvey calls the male gaze"[] and Kilbourne says that "the media presents women as mannequins: tall and thin, often US size zero, with very long legs, perfect teeth and skin without a blemish in sight."[3] This is evident through my chosen texts Vogue and Look magazine. They conform to the ideal that women should be skinny and flawless and adored by men. By looking through the advertisements in Vogue, I found that the majority of them included women with a petite body shape, shiny hair, nice teeth and airbrushed skin, a social desire for many women in todays society. Most of the women in Look are also depicted as desirable to readers through the use of the latest fashion and make up. An advertisement on the back page of look magazine for Paco Rabanne perfume shows an objectified female looking very suggestive. She is a young, skinny, flawless woman wearing a low cut dress clicking her fingers as if she is ordering someone to come to her. This shows dominance, a trait traditionally associated with men as they are seen as holding the power and taking on the traditional masculine gender role. However, we could apply Laura Mulveys male gaze theory here as by objectifying this woman the man will gain viewing pleasure or 'scopophilia' from looking at her and even women will take on the viewpoint of the male and view her from a males perspective. By objectifying a woman it devalues her and removes her humanity, she simply just exists as an object that is to be enjoyed. Mulvey would say that this reflects patriarchal society where men construct the ideal visions and have dominance over women. A passive audience may try to copy this representation of women, resulting in an inaccurate representation of women in society. By representing these women as 'perfect' and 'desirable' it creates aspiration for many women to look and behave this way, it could also inflict mens opinions that women should look like this and if they don't then they aren't attractive.
2nd aim) It could be argued that the ideologies and constructed representations in the adverts can encourage people to buy the product being advertised by the magazine. Although the advertisements in Vogue and Look differ; as the companies will advertise different products, do they both conform to the idea that by representing females in a certain way can sell products? The November issue of Look magazine has 124 pages with 45 of these pages being adverts. This means approximately 36% of the magazine is advertisements and 64% are articles. The October issue of Vogue magazine has () pages with () being advertisements. This means approximately ( )% of Vogue is advertisements compared to Look magazine that is only made up of 36% advertising. 11,265,000 people are estimated to read Vogue magazine worldwide with 88% of these being female at an average age of 38. [] It is astonishing that Vogue has such a large amount of people buy Vogue and yet it is ( )% advertisements. We can see from this that people continue to buy the magazine each month not because of the articles but the sheer amount of advertisements which must be successful as the amount of consumers is as lot higher than other magazines such as Look. Less people tend to buy into Look magazine and yet it has a lower proportion of advertisements. Does this mean that consumers enjoy seeing females represented in particular ways? "The goal is to motivate consumers through ads to buy goods or services, change their thinking or create excitement." [] The adverts in Vogue and Look appear to conform to this statement as they both 'motivate' and 'entice' the consumer through the images and ideals they feed them in their advertisements. They sell lifestyles and looks that many women dream to have, either to feel confident in themselves or to attract the attention of a male. This is evident through the advert for Paco Rabanne in Look magazine.
3rd aim) Some may also say that by representing women in a particular way, it can lead to false expectations of what women in society should look like. Women that are fed this information could be led to believe that this is a social norm and that women should in fact look like the ones in the magazines. Maybe this is down to how women are represented in advertisements. "The developments in media allow consumers to reflect back to the world the gender stereotypes they've been exposed to." []
Bibliography
[1] http://smallbusiness.chron.com/differences-between-advertisements-commercials-10353.html
[2] http://www.missrepresentation.org/resources/
[3] http://revisionworld.co.uk/a2-level-level-revision/sociology/mass-media-0/media-representations-age-social-class-ethnicity-gender-sexuality-and-disability
[]http://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/boysgirlsandmediamessages_commonsensemedia_spring2013.pdf
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