United States of Advertising.

Advertising is everywhere - literally. Just look at Times Square in New York City. Then look around campus. We are bombarded daily with messages that we need to buy, eat, and consume in order to function. Most of these ads target our weaknesses: eating indulgent foods, feeling like we don't look good enough, and just plain not feeling good about ourselves. The assignment this week reminded me of everything that gets thrown in my face via advertising.

An ad for Millennium Surfboards, although I'd never know that if I hadn't read the caption underneath (not pictured here), was the first thing I came across this week while browsing a sports website. Clearly this is sexually suggestive. A guy standing up while a girl kneels in front of him? Sorry if you marketing majors think I'm being dirty and missing the point of the ad, but i think it's pretty clear what they mean here. The male is in the position of dominance while the female is in her position of subservience. Like I said, pretty clear message to me.

This advertisement states, "Why envy when you have NB?", where the "NB" stands for New Beauty, the name of the plastic surgeon it's supposed to be advertising. I think these sort of advertisements bother me the most. They tell women that they can simply have a surgery to add breasts or take away fat, thus taking away their self-esteem issues. This whole idea that "you need to be fixed" in order to be beautiful pervades out society. Instead of telling women, "Why envy when you have your own body?", the marketing experts push upon us the idea that we are the ones lacking, and that they have the cures for everything that is "wrong" with us.

I wish I had a bigger copy of this ad to post. The "tramp stamp" on the girl's backside reads, "Power Sound Mileage". But the way they emphasize these things is.... by a woman's rear end? Sadly, this makes sense in today's advertising. Only the woman's butt is shown, exemplifying exactly what was discussed in the portion of the documentary we watched. She is being taken as a part, not as a whole. Treated as only a piece of meat, so to speak. While I do understand that the product being sold is a tail pipe, and that they also picture the car's bumper, that does not mean they should resort to objectifying the back half of a woman also.

I've never enjoyed the objectification of people that occurs in advertising; it just makes me uncomfortable to think that the half-naked models featured in these ads are someone's sister/cousin/brother/etc. It's hard to escape sometimes, especially when your favorite magazines such as InStyle focus so much on having the perfect look. While there are some companies pushing for diversity in their marketing schemes, the majority still push the idealized body, significant other, and life.