‘There is a secret ‘under life’ poisoning our freedom,
infused with notions of beauty, it is a dark vein of self hatred, physical
obsessions, terror of ageing and dread of lost control’[1]
To what extent does the beauty advertising industry promote dominant ideologies that female audiences are influenced by and adopt?
To what extent does the beauty advertising industry promote dominant ideologies that female audiences are influenced by and adopt?
Looking
retrospectively at the gender roles; historically ‘Women spend most of their
time either pregnant or producing milk’[8] subject
to a psychological evolutionary view from the 1950s. Society has created a
belief that ‘women and men were indoctrinated from birth into believing that
women's semi-slave status was natural.’[9] The
distinctive roles transferred within advertising as shown in ‘The Joy of Living
with Fragrance’ and ‘Coty Lipstick’, merely representing a dominant patriarchal
society where expression and independence of a woman was frowned upon. Such beauty
adverts deemed to challenge the dominant ideologies of women however, ‘even
when women are shown in a position of power, it is still shown through a very
patriarchal ideology’[10]. Interlinking
Barthes theory of cultural myth, close analysis of this text shows the woman
protagonist being passive, waiting to be rescued by a man. This is achieved by
incorporating the presence of a male figure that ‘have always designated women
as a sub-class who exist to serve male needs’[11]. Therefore
this represents the male figure as more active and economically powerful. This
elicits the social differences and shows the explicit connection between the male
and female inseparability. Targeting middle aged aspiring women who want to
break the stereotypes of themselves being a ‘housewife’ has led to contradicted aims of the advert due to the
presence of male figures. The product of the contradiction pursues targeted consumers
beliefs as they are less aware and educated about the possibilities and
practicalities of women breaking the dominant stereotypes in the 1960s of the
beauty industry.
According
to the Guardian, ‘women could let her hair go grey and still feel she was
making the best of herself.’[12] In this
decade the media were afraid to embrace women’s successes and femininity;
although potentially minimal, due to its unconventionality and breaking the
norms of society. In some respect, by taking risks, would jeopardise the
status, respect and economical values of accredited institutions.
The
feminist movement over many decades imposed an inevitable change. According to
Gunter (1995) who provides a guide to content analysis of studies, results
showed that ‘women in magazine adverts prior to the 1970s were rarely shown to
be in paid work’[13].
Continuation of studies led to found that the amount of ‘housewives’ after the
50s decreased however advertising still showed ‘three quarters were for kitchen
and bathroom products’.[14] Even
though there was a decrease in gender stereotype roles, women weren’t seen as
influential or successful to challenge the stereotypes within advertising. The
failure to being embraced to their full potential, feminists continued to
challenge the rights of women such as reproductive rights, maternity leave,
equal pay and the right to vote, striving to make women socially dominant and
representative of developing characteristics of the country, i.e. the media.
This was considered as the third wave of
the movement between the 1980s and 1990s which focused on developing the
achievements of women, one of which expressing their beauty and success in
adverts to represent a hard hitting impact on audiences to generate a new
generation of competitive culture in consumerism.
Women started
to become less domestic; trying to pursue careers and independence as supported
by the BBC broadcasting a video online quoting that in 1970s, ‘26,000 women in
this decade went to study higher education and ‘advertisers celebrated these
new women’[15].
This crucial change between being a domestic housewife and being an independent
woman led to improve their appearance changing the dynamics of dominant and
alternative ideologies. Women became greatly open with their appearance to
generate excitement, change and independence in a ‘new’ woman. This created a
dominant effect in those women who succeeded flaunting their femininity and
attributes in which, the media glamorised by working alongside women who aspire
to achieve a welcoming appearance and a successful future. Brands such as
L’Oreal created an ‘advertising campaign making dyeing practically mandatory.’[16] Due to
this feminist movement, stereotypes of women began to change.
In the 21st
century the feminist movement hasn’t managed to completely demolished the
patriarchal society however strong women has pushed the boundaries to continue
to represent their lives as a ‘new’ woman. This is heavily evident in Rihanna first released perfume ‘Reb’l or
Fleur?’ advertised predominantly on social networking sites and YouTube. The
majority of Rihanna’s audience; young female aspirers, actively use the
internet, due to technological determinism in the current 21stcentury.
It is found that ‘16.7% of
the world’s population have access to the internet’[17] which shows that Rihanna’s impact on
consumers through technological marketing, generates a vast amount of female
consumers to acknowledge her innovative and successful pathway to becoming an
idol. This enhances the awareness and knowledge women have acquired over
several years to push the boundaries of the norm and elicit mesmerising and
memorable attributes competing against the patriarchal society.
Due to the changes of the dynamics of
dominant and alternative ideologies Rihanna portrays both representations of success and freedom against sexuality
and femininity. According to Todorov’s narrative theory, the advert
follows a continuous pathway of equilibrium where Rihanna is surrounded by
feathers. This creates an idea of freedom and hold over her surroundings. The
disequilibrium shows Rihanna engaging herself with multiple men, and lastly a
new equilibrium where she discovers her real identity, escaping to her unwanted
reality. The contrasting point in
which Rihanna sells in her perfume reflects Levi Strauss’ binary oppositions
through the use of snow and sun. The advert incorporates these two opposite
ideologies and begins with the ‘good’ image ‘Fleur’ and the bad ‘Reb’l’. This
text elicits the current dynamics of women’s ideologies.
Now,
women are seen as ‘the objectification which fuels stereotypes – reducing them
to nothing more than their body parts’.[18] In the
Reb’l section, the audience acknowledge the presence of multiple male figures
following her, covering her eyes, and seducing her. This is executed through
multiple close up shots of body parts and sexual expressions representing women
as sex objects. Applying the post feminist theory it ‘includes the notion that
femininity is a bodily property; the shift from objectification to
subjectification’.[19] This
theory suggests that it has succeeded in its goal of revolutionising sexism,
making it fundamentally opposed to the third-wave intention of broadening
feminist struggle henceforth shown in the sexualisation of a dominant ideology
of Rihanna transitioned section of her advert. Furthermore, according to the
feminist Bell Hooks, today’s cultural expressions such as sex references in a
post modern world are commoditised to the dominant culture; the patriarchal
society. Although objectification in Rihanna’s advert is shown, consumer
culture of women believe that sexual references, clothing and expressions are
worthy enough to purchase the product regardless of the cost where they are
‘expected to be sexy and virginal, experienced and naive, seductive and chaste,
they are made to feel that they have to achieve this ideal, by constantly being
presented with these image’.[20]
In the
21st patriarchal society, advertisers come to acknowledge the
benefits of fuelling the objectification of women as it has shown to produce
aspirations by women and visual pleasure by men as supported by Laura Mulvey’s
narrative cinema and visual pleasure theory. However in some cases it has led
to whether sexualisation is so exaggerated that it questions the regulation and
censorship involved. Belle D’Opium by Yves Saint Laurent had explicit reference
to drug use which generated thirteen complaints sent to the Advertising
Standards Authority (ASA). The brand quoted to the agency ‘The advertisement
was not intended to make any reference to drug culture, but to promote the
sensuality and seductive qualities of the fragrance’.[21] This
shows that the changes in ideologies in which institutions want to achieve has
reached ultimate glamorisation leading to adverts being banned. This represents
a radical change in women from the 1960s.
Positively, beauty adverts also use women
who possess success, power and independence, evidently through celebrity
endorsed products; Cheryl Cole and L’Oreal, Davina McCall and Pantene and
Beyonce and Heat. Marketers believe that ‘brands and celebrities can be
described as mutually beneficial’[22] in which they ‘pay
millions of dollars’[23] hoping that such a
tactic would ‘bring magic to the brand
they endorse and make them more appealing and successful’[24].Practically, this
was illustrated when, ‘Lily Allen
under the Chanel umbrella to promote their handbag range in 2009 added a touch
of European sophistication’[25] which shows that
celebrities can challenge the dominant ideologies of women within beauty
advertising. By challenging the stereotypes of women using celebrities; female
consumers can identify themselves, compare the opinions of reality and
broadcast in order to develop more positive ideologies of women.
Although
celebrity endorsement can have positive benefits it also leads to disadvantages
for consumers as they believe the adverts generate ‘a whole desirable style of life’[26] allowing consumers to
believe that ‘not owning the product would involve personal failure’[27]. Due to the change in
ideologies of women, outward appearances have become an important style of life
as statistics show ‘women expose themselves to more than 200 synthetic
chemicals before she has morning coffee’[28]. The
exposure to beauty women have today ideally want to ‘try to achieve this unattainable
look they constantly see in media advertising’[29]
which can cost a lot of money, hence fuelling the beauty industry.
Beauty
adverts today are parallel to the current status in society, all created by
powerful media institutions who fail to understand the change in society, and
are afraid of change due to the risks and controversy it may cause. Contradicting
this idea, Rihanna has currently represented herself as a dominant female
figure amongst big institutions and proven this through her perfume and
enabling control. This success has proved to the beauty industry that taking
risks against stereotypical views has a great effect on consumer culture. However, institutions believe that ‘informing
and teaching its citizens, helps democracy move toward its ideal state’[30], which
is why beauty advertising avoids challenging certain stereotypes in order to achieve
society status.
By
‘paying the advertising campaign used to influence their purchase’[31]
it achieves a dominant look in society by the women’s increased knowledge of
‘fake realities’ portrayed in adverts represent the copycat theory. Women
strive to be like famous successful women, therefore go to any means necessary
to ‘copy’ such power through the products the beauty industry believes to sell.
Due to this selling technique, ‘UK industries take £8.9 billion a year out of
women’s pockets.’[32]
Daniel Chandler who proposed the cultivation theory suggests that such
institutions who inject advertising and other forms in the media through
television, ‘is widely known to
represent and reinforce the mainstream ideology of contemporary western
culture’[33]
hiding reality thus creating a disruption in understanding our own personal
lives therefore more likely to believe social reality. Henceforth the
aspirations the television broadcasts are impossible to achieve without a large
expenditure.
According
to Marxist theory, the dominant institutions that control the means of
production are known as the bourgeoisie who deem to control the beliefs of the
proletariat. Within advertising, the bourgeoisie try to ensure that body image
and beauty is standardised across all cultures to achieve continuity and creating
‘needs’ for a product in a consumers mind. The bourgeoisie gain greater
profits, ensuring mass capitalism hence improving the economy. Ruling
institutions develop and construct a world of aspirations; standardisation and
maximum capitalism creating a simulacrum in which they project onto consumers
making them believe that this constructed hyper reality can be the reality in
today’s society.
In conclusion, the media influences women’s desires
and beliefs into what their appearance should be. Over time the ideologies of
women both dominant and alternative ones have changed due to the increase in
important and influential aspects the media generates, especially through the
beauty industry. Simply, the injection of beauty representations of women are
exaggerated, which refers to the hypodermic needle model as the actions, images
and expressions are injected into the culture in which women aspire to. Some
would disagree that the changes are due to individual evaluations, substituting
the effect of the media. This creates a
more complex argument to determine the responsibility of which individuals or
media conglomerates are to blame for the objectification of women in the 21st
century.
Word Count: 2,160
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[3]Effects of Media portrayal of
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[8]Cardwell, Mike, and Cara Flanagan. p.100
[10]Women on Television.(n.d.).Aberystwyth University - Home . from
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[12]Butler, G. (2006, June 11). What makes women happy? |
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[13]Gauntlett, D. (2002). p.55
[14]Gauntlett, D. (2002). p.55
[15]BBC - Learning Zone Class Clips - Greater Freedom for
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[16]Butler, G. (2006, June 11). What makes women happy? |
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[17] Skinner, Andrew M ."The Impact of
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[18]Urwin, R. (2012, January 26). p. 15.
[19] Gill, R. (n.d.). Postfeminist media culture: elements of
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[20]Women on Television.(n.d.).Aberystwyth
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[21] http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG8298164/TV-advert-for-Yves-Saint-Laurent-fragrance-Belle-dOpium-is-banned.html
[22]Homer, E. (2008, December 26). Star Struck. Media
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[24]Jambeshwar, G. (2007, January 1). Impact
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[32]Gauntlett, D. (2002). p.77
[33]Women on Television.(n.d.).Aberystwyth University – Home. from
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