Minorities in media

In contemporary American media, we like to think we see a range of diversity in people we are exposed to.  This is not the case.
Minorities are largely under-represented/misrepresented in video games--in the 2001 study by U.S. organization Children Now, it was found 86% of protagonists in video games were white males.  On the same note, 57% of white males were shown as verbally and physically aggressive, while 79% of African-American males were shown in the same light.  9 out of 10 African American women were shown as victims of violence--two times as much as white females.

Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas

The greatest ethnic disparity we see, though, comes not in the numbers of minorities shown to us on screen, but who is working behind the screen.  Since 1990, the Minority Telecommunications Development Program has been conducting research and issuing reports on minority commercial broadcast ownership in the U.S.  In 2000, minority broadcasters owned 3.8% of commercial radio and television stations.

Some statistics from RTNDA/Ball State University Annual Survey (2004):
-Minorites on television news staffs dropped to  21.2% of local news staffs
-Local radio minority workforce dropped to 7.9%

From NAACP 2000 survey of Hollywood and Beverly Hills screenwriters:
-7% of respondents were of minority groups
-83% of black writers surveyed wrote for primarily black TV shows

1998 study A Different World: Children’s Perceptions of Race and Class in Media:
"Children Now’s 1998 study A Different World: Children’s Perceptions of Race and Class in Media supports that conclusion. Their research found that children associate white characters with various attributes: having lots of money, being well educated, being a leader, doing well in school, and being intelligent. Conversely, they associate minority characters with breaking the law, having a hard time financially, being lazy, and acting goofy."--Media awareness network

Let's hear it for the boys!

With all these past posts being mainly about female-specific advertising, and advertising's negative effects on females, I decided to devote this post to all those men out there who are so frequently overlooked.

Men are portrayed in media and advertising as "in charge, self-contained and often alone. When shown with other men, they seem ready to unleash their aggression at any moment. When shown with women, they must be dominant."--Center for Media Literacy


Men are the media's symbols for power.  They are shown as suffocated by commitment, or blundering fools for being in committed relationships.  Males are primed from a very early age to accept sexual advances by any attractive females--where a little boy surrounded by giggling swimsuit models is acceptable, and the boy is even considered "lucky," a young girl being surrounded by half-naked adult men would certainly never be acceptable by society's moral compass.


Probably the most detrimental factor in media's constant reinforcement of male gender roles is that men are expected to shut up, and not whine about them.  After all, men are supposed to be the mighty and all-powerful beings--men cannot show emotions, let alone even have a range of them, without facing major criticism.


Along with creating a warped sense of sexuality with little room for personal freedom, males are bombarded with the idea that they cannot establish healthy intimate relationships.  Heterosexual males who bond with their female partners are considered defeated by these women, run down, powerless in their doomed fates.  Heterosexual males are also criticized for having close friendships with other males in which they share anything beyond impersonal information.  In other words, males are expected to maintain relationships with little to no self-disclosure. 


And with men shutting up, sucking it up, and bottling it up...it makes perfect sense that we have problems with male aggression.  When males have no acceptable way to express their suppressed feelings except for anger, how else do they cope if not with rage?
We all have this idea that male testosterone is what results in domestic abuse, bullying, and sexual assault.  And yet, we rarely ever hear anyone questioning our socially constructed boxes we force men into as contributing.
This is not a male issue.  This is not a female issue.  This is a human issue, and an advertising issue.
It's time we address it.

Dove "Real" Beauty Campaign

I had to do a post on Unilever owned Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty," for the sheer fact that if I have to hear about how beneficial and progressive Dove's advertising/marketing/PR campaign is one more time, I might shoot myself.  So here's the skinny (HA HA HA get it):  Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty has been going on since its beginning in November of 2004.  The campaign was founded on results Dove obtained from conducting a global study on beauty, the most frequently used statistic being that only 2% of women describe themselves as beautiful.  Since then, the Campaign has become hugely popular and well-known.

I remember when I first read about the campaign.  I believe it was in 2006, but the advertisements had not gotten big yet, I guess.  It was new to me.  It was either in Bitch or Bust magazine, and I remember reading about this fabulous new campaign to encourage self-confidence in women with real body types.  "Thank god," I thought.  "Finally."
Obviously, a million other women thought the same thing.  The campaign got extremely popular, and sales for Dove soon skyrocketed thereafter.
Then I found out Axe, the male body spray that showcases buxom women in degrading images to sell all of the brand's products, was owned by Unilever...the same company that owns Dove.
This was the first thing that began to sketch me out some about Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty".

(Some Axe ads:)

"On the bed or on the boudoir?"

"Save on your Axe.  Save on car washing."

"I shaved for today."

In 2006, Dove uploaded onto the internet their video entitled "Evolution"--a soon to be viral video which showed the process of making over models for advertisements, as well as the process of digital photo editing, creating illusionary beauty.

Fast forward to 2008.  The advertisements that made Dove's campaign so famous, and widely praised (shown below), are revealed to be heavily airbrushed.  In consideration with Dove's "Evolution" video, the hypocrisy is rather blatant.

Here, we have Dove telling us they want to transform hegemonic modern ideas that present unrealistic portraits of beauty...yet we are told this through digitally manipulated ads.  Thanks Dove, your conflicting ideas really challenge the norm.

The final blow to Doves campaign came last year, 2010.  An ad was posted on Craigslist by Dove and affiliates for a casting call in New York City.  It read:

 DOVE "REAL WOMEN" PRINT CASTING JUNE 28-30, 2010 in NYC
ABSOLUTELY NO ACTRESSES / MODELS OR REALITY SHOW PARTICIPANTS or ANY ONE CARRYING A HEADSHOT!!!!
REAL WOMEN ONLY!
LOOKING FOR 3-4 REAL WOMEN for a DOVE PRINT CAMPAIGN!

AGES 35-45, CAUCASIAN, HISPANIC, AFRICAN AMERICAN, & ASIAN!

SHOOT: SUNDAY, JULY 18 in NYC! MUST BE AVAILABLE FOR THE SHOOT!
RATE: $500 for Shoot date & if selected for Ad Campaign (running 2011) you will be paid $4000!
USAGE: 3 years unlimited print & web usage in N. America Only

YOU WILL BE PHOTOGRAPHED FOR THE CAMPAIGN IN A TOWEL!
BEAUTIFUL ARMS AND LEGS AND FACE WILL BE SHOWN!
MUST HAVE FLAWLESS SKIN, NO TATTOOS OR SCARS!
Well groomed and clean...Nice Bodies..NATURALLY, FIT Not too Curvy Not too Athletic.

Great Sparkling Personalities. Beautiful Smiles! A DOVE GIRL!!!
STYLISH AND COOL!
Beautiful HAIR & SKIN is a MUST!!! 

PLEASE SUBMIT SNAPSHOTS of FACE & BODY ASAP & WE WILL CALL YOU IN FOR A CASTING NEXT WEEK 6/28-6/30 in NYC!

Dove, of course, faced immediate backlash with the leak of this ad, promptly responding they were not responsible for the ad, and they were not aware their agents posted such ads.  Still...looking at Dove's "Real Beauty" advertisements, while their models are more diverse than your run of the mill runway models, it is noticeable that the hypocritical requirements listed in the Craigslist ad do seem to be the preference for Dove when it comes to choosing their models.

Personally, I certainly don't think Dove is at the top of the list of corporate demons to fight, but I do feel it gets way more credit than it deserves.  What do you think?

More:
Businessweek on airbrushed Dove ads
Dove blog rant and list of brands in campaign
Canadian Journal of Media Studies - Dove article
Advertising Age on airbrushed Dove ads
The Week - debate on Dove's hypocrisy
Jezebel on craigslist ad

We love our products--more than we love other humans

So piggybacking on the speech by author Jean Kilbourne I linked at the end of my last post, I'd like to talk about the interesting and frightening concept Kilbourne presents us with.  This idea is the prepping of our society to be lifelong consumers through forming strong relationships with their products...stronger than their relationships with other human beings.

We see this in advertising a lot--the humanizing of inanimate products.  Frequently it is sexual.  Other times, though, our product is presented to us as a lifelong companion; something that is simple, and can be trusted...unlike humans.

For the men, we see this a lot in car or beer ads.  Example:

"Warning:  This vehicle may give you personal freedom"

"The ultimate attraction."

These are both car ads, obviously geared toward men.  The first is for Ford, selling us "personal freedom"--freedom from romantic obligations, most likely freedom from our significant other.  Ford is saying to us, "Hey men, buy this car as a way to escape your partner you loathe spending time with!"  After all, the car is faithful.

The second ad is for BMW, sexualizing the car more.  In my opinion, this is just creepy.  I mean really, they're selling you on having sex with your car...isn't that a little weird?  Anyway, the message behind this advertisement is pretty obvious-- "Your lover might let you have sex with her, but we know you really love your BMW so much more than this sex!"  Shudder.

So what about women?  Well, they're prepped in the same way, pretty much.  Chocolate ads/dessert ads are a pretty good example:

"Six Pack that melts a girl's heart.  Dove chocolate"

"Now it can last longer than you can resist.  Unwrap.  Indulge.  Repeat.  One pure silk bar now comes in three individually wrapped portions.  My moment.  My Dove!"

"You've never been caressed like this before."

The first two ads are for Dove chocolate.  

The first is selling us on the chocolate being comparable to a perfectly sculpted set of male abdominals.  Because of course, if you can't find a man who looks like a model or a body builder, you can just eat chocolate instead!  It'll make you feel better.

The second Dove chocolate ad is, just like the car ad we looked at, sexualizing the chocolate.  When you think about it that way, it seems so strange, doesn't it?  This Dove chocolate ad is saying to us that the chocolate will tease us until we can't handle it anymore, and then some.  This chocolate will never disappoint you with a performance problem!  This chocolate lasts for a long time...

The third ad is for Caress brand products.  Here, Caress is promising to touch us in a way incomparable to that of a human.  These products are better than human.  

More:

Excerpt from Social Communication in Advertising: Persons, Products, and Images of Well-Being

Infantilization on the Rise

It really scares me how the idea of infantilization never really came to my full realization after looking at countless advertisements, until actually hearing the idea clearly laid out in a little-known documentary called Commercial Realism, shown to my gender and communications class last year.  It took hearing the concept of infantilization of women in media aloud to really be able to think of it in an organized manner.  That in itself is terrifying to me--that all these ideas shoved into my head are muddled together to the point I can't even begin to conceptualize...

Infantilization of women is the increasing trend in the media to portray women as sexualized young girls, and young girls as sexually mature women.  It is a complicated blurred line between the sexual maturation of a woman and the undeveloped sexuality of girls, no doubt founded on a subtly pedophilic desire.  If you are exposed to any advertising, you've seen this, whether you realize it or not.

One rather blatant example comes in the packaging of Bratz dolls--the fashion/shopping/glamour obsessed dolls that blew Barbie out of the water in sales, forcing them to change Barbie into a doll closer to Bratz (MyScene Barbies).

Bratz dolls

Steve Madden shoe advertisement

The striking resemblance of the freakishly disproportionate models in the Steve Madden advertisement to the Bratz dolls sold and marketed to little girls is unmistakeable.  It seems that companies are prepping young girls to be appearance obsessed, while sending them complicated mixed messages about sexuality--by nature, girls are sexually deviant, but also sexually appealing when feigning innocence--innocence now is not about sexual purity, but being an object of sexual desire and doing a good job at masking the effort.

Another example of the increasing trend to infantilize women in the media comes in today's ideal model type.  This type has a certain set of characteristics, aside from the obvious--wide, very light eyes (usually blue), very thin--a body type like a pre-pubescent girl, light skin, and most of the time naturally blonde.

Examples--

Jessica Stam, supermodel/high fashion model/Victoria's Secret underwear model:

Gemma Ward--supermodel/high fashion model (she's posed nude too):

Gosh this last one of Gemma Ward...It reminds me of another photograph...anyone else want to make a guess?

Ah yes, our beloved Miley Cyrus.

The Disney star our little girls love, sing along to.  We buy her clothing line, her cds, we watch her tv show.  We follow her like little lost puppies.  Oh yeah, and she's also been made into a doll, which we buy for our little girls to play with.  We can buy and consume Miley Cyrus in oh so many ways.

Then, of course, we have shows like Toddlers and Tiaras, where mere tots are coated in cosmetics and doused with hairspray to become like little dolls, thrown on stage, ready to be consumed.

More on media's infantilization of females:

Cato Journal

NY Times

Jean Kilbourne speech on infantilization/sexualization

Marilyn Minter

Speaking of controversy, fashion advertising, and blurred lines of sexuality (you can tell what's on my brain, right?)...
I wanted to devote a post to a very unique contemporary artist, Marilyn Minter.

Twins (?)

Marilyn Minter, who is 61, has shot fashion photography, was commissioned to shoot nude photography for one of Pamela Anderson's planned weddings (it never actually happened, but the set was made by Minter into an art show), and has had her artwork featured on skateboard decks.  She is quite an interesting lady, in my opinion.

Stuffed, 2003

Marilyn Minter has had her artwork bashed by feminist groups for her early work in the late 80s'-early 90s' for its basis in hardcore pornography.  Minter's aim was to highlight the absurdity of such pornography, but to some, this was not as apparent as she had hoped.

Gold Tip, 2009

Minter's work is all at once both subtle yet glaringly obvious commentary on the fashion world, advertising, and the immense over-sexualization of our culture.  Her work shows the illusion of beauty, the imperfection of the seemingly perfect, the sexuality of what at face value is not sexual, and the disturbing nature of our frequent objectification of women.  All wrapped into the shiny package of her art.

Fuzzy Pam, 2007

Minter works from photographs, editing and manipulating them on the computer at least 80 different times to convey the sort of feeling she wants her viewers to feel.  Then the image is applied to metal plates magnanimous in scale, painted on by her "team"--her apprentice-type workers of her workshop, which she lives above.

Amoeba, 2008

Minter's work is fascinating in that it is aesthetically pleasing, yet also disturbing.  The images we see are glossy, bright, glittery, colorful.  Yet the expensive heels we see on perfectly pedicured feet are dynamically splashing in mud.  The crimson painted lips we see spill strings of pearls like vomit.  The tip of an extended tongue appears to be dipped in metallic gold paint.  These images first attract us, then shake us, then force us to ask ourselves, "why?"  After all, in subject matter, what we are seeing is not obscene, yet in our minds, it registers as such.  And then maybe, hopefully, after critical analysis of these multi-media works, we make the connection that these images are so similar to those of popular advertising.

More on Marilyn Minter:
NY Times - "The Gimlet Eye"
The Whitney
Green Pink Caviar - Minter's 8 min film
NY Mag

Dolce and Gabbana - overtly sexist?

We live in a culture that has gone from sexual oppression and repression, to over-exposure to the point of desensitization within only 100 years time.  In a complicated western world complete with third wave, and post-feminism, the lines between pornography and many other media outlets (especially advertising) have become greatly blurred.  

Such is the case with the increasingly controversial advertising campaigns of the well-known fashion label, Dolce and Gabbana.

Dolce and Gabbana has been only been around since 1984*, and is already one of the most worn high-end clothing labels today.  D&G's ads can be seen in virtually almost every fashion magazine on the shelves, plus every issue of Vogue (the sort of king of the fashion magazine world).  People pay thousands of dollars for their clothing.  Its name has that kind of weight.

Now don't get me wrong, many companies use sex as a selling point in their advertising.  After all, it's easy to appeal to an irrational desire as strong as sexual desire.  Many companies also try to use controversy to "push the envelope," so to speak, in their advertising as a way to grab attention and generate buzz.  This is all fine and well to a certain extent, and sure, controversial advertising is always bound to offend someone one way or another.  But when does oversexualized, controversial advertising cross that line into blatant displays of sexism?

Here is probably the most infamous D&G ad, in that regard:

Of course, along with this ad came the two-sided argument of harm vs. harmlessness.  But there are a couple of important contextual elements to note.

For one, this ad was first released in the March 2007 issue of Esquire magazine.  In case you don't know what Esquire magazine is, it is a men's magazine that is published globally.

In addition to this, during the same time, Spain was experiencing a high rate of women targeted violence .

Both the Spanish and the Italian governments both demanded D&G pull the ads from their countries.  And that they did.

This next ad may look familiar from my last post:

When observing advertisements, we must look carefully and ask ourselves--what is this company trying to sell to us?  Who are they trying to sell to?  And what idea are they trying to sell us on?

If Dolce and Gabbana are trying to sell us on controversy, couldn't they do so in a million ways other than trying to sell rape and objectification of women?

More links on D&G ad controversy:
adpunch.org
Models and Moguls
Frisky Geek
Fashionist