The past is something that is held on by the media but also stubbornly enough women in advertisement portray infantilization —the idea of never wanting to leave girlhood. This aspect of the media shocked me because I had not realized how our society is afraid of getting old. In advertisements this need to stay young forever is seen in various forms. One of the ways that this is seen is in sexualized childish poses that many models exhibit. For Example, the Guess model seen in the picture above is bitting her finger, something a little girl would do. Not only that, but there are many advertisements that show little girls with older women exactly dressed. On the other hand little girls are hyper sexualized to seem older. It is as if our society is confused about what values it wants to portray.
Another example of this confusion is reflected through the clothing company Guess. One of the creators of Guess, Paul Marciano, has expressed that he loves a time when women knew their place, and were not touched by the women’s rights movement. I would call Paul Marciano the typical “Macho.” He portrays a sense of entitlement toward women; by saying we are merely for decoration purposes. Last I checked there is so much more to being women in our generation. Paul Marciano has aided the perpetuation of traditional views that dehumanize women and even objectifying us. Through all the hard work women leaders have done to get us to this point, it’s men like him with narrowed views that set us back in the progress.
*Information retrieved from The Gender Codes documentary by Sut Jhally.
*Information retrieved from The Gender Codes documentary by Sut Jhally.
I really agree with this. Girls today are definitely hypersexualized to seem older, and then when they are older, it reverses. I think that this relates a lot to the workplaces as well, as in major Fortune 500 companies, there are few if any women that hold major leadership positions within those companies. It's really sad, because there are a lot of women that would be great leaders. However, I think that its a mistake for men to think that women need to be "put in their place." Then sometimes, we as society take one step forward and two steps back.
ReplyDeleteThe media does tend to portray women as younger girls. I remember flipping through some magazines and seeing advertisements for tampons and pads. In one particular ad the woman is dressed as a younger girl with her hair in pigtails and playing jump rope with two other women dressed similarly. The ad was trying to say how comfortable their product was and how no matter what the girl was doing there wouldn't be any leaks. I remember pointing it out to the rest of my advertising class and we laughed. Of course we knew a women would need such products, but a little girl who plays double-dutch? It made me wonder if whether these representations helped sell the product? For me a seeing a "little girl" needing girly products is humorous and doesn't convince me that I need to buy that brand. Is there is a point where a little too much "girl" hinders the selling the product for other companies, such as clothing?
ReplyDeleteI have always thought that as one grows older their beauty deepens, because of their wisdom and wrinkles. Media today takes that away from the beauty of life, especially for women. It should be a beautiful thing to grow old, but we are constantly hindered by the fact of looking younger than we actually are.
ReplyDeleteI know people who are constantly buying anti aging creams in order to look younger ( they are 25) years old. This is all because the media and many celebrities say wrinkles and gray hair are bad. I don't understand and maybe never will understand why advertisements cant just embrace age as beauty.
I would agree with this because it astonishes me how little girls these days look older and older at a younger and younger age. When I was in sixth grade I was focused on having fun, playing outside and playing basketball but the girls I lead at camp talk about boys and makeup and don't want to get dirty which really surprises how their focus has shifted. It also seems that little girls want to grow up so fast and then once they do they do everything to look young and appear younger than they actually are. It is as if advertising is taking away girls' childhood because it creates a desire for them to be sexualized women. Media has such a huge impact on the way child think and act and it is as if people forget this or just don't even care about how it is effecting society as long as it sells their products.
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