TRILLION*0.5 DOLLAR STEREOTYPES

TRILLION*0.5 DOLLAR STEREOTYPES

Imagine an industry of half a trillion dollar value getting most of its share by propagating stereotypic thoughts all around and no one knows or recognizes this. It is the best camouflage I have ever seen. Every day I see people in stores buying products influenced by those advertisements which are promoting stereotypic virus into the minds of everyone, and at the end of the day the same people who are influenced by these ads sit and talk about the “stereotypes” in the world. Advertisements are one of the major sources of these ideas.

I mainly want to talk about FMCG products which are of daily use and in few references luxury goods too.

To be precise I’ll try to explain few ads:

Child Gender Roles: Advertisements portraying boys to be rough and aggressive, girls weak and feminine. A print advertisement where a boy is standing inside a gray pop-up castle, taking on a posture of power and dominance. A girl is shown covering in fear outside the castle as if afraid to enter.

Shallow or Incompetent Male: Ads where male are shown to enact naïve pranks and activities to gain attention of females which are mainly the beer commercials. In household the husband sometimes is being portrayed as a dull individual who hasn’t accomplished the task and the female counterpart on seeing the advertisement buys the product and gets the job done.

Domesticated females: In the era of a rapid modernization we think domestication of women is wrong and we bring out rallies over it get agitated and want to do something but has anyone ever gone against advertisements we see daily of laundry products, soaps, child care depict women to have the ultimate responsibility to be in the buying decision of the products.

Racial Stereotypes: Advertising can also perpetuate racial stereotypes that have lasted for generations. As an example, McDonald's came under heavy criticism for creating an advertisement depicting Chinese people who had difficulty pronouncing the letter "r." In England, the Advertising Standards Authority banned an ad showing a black man playing a ukulele and repeating every word a white man says, saying that the ad could be seen as showing blacks as subservient or inferior to whites. (Reference: Model Minority: McDonald's Defends Racial Sterotypes; Didi Kirsten Tatlow)

USING FEMALE BODY: Advertisement contains various symbolic messages in an attempt to reach their target audience. In order to show how the stereotype female are represented in the target audience. In order to show how the stereotype female are represented in the advertisement I have taken some of the advertisements like “The Axe Effect”, “Fair and advertisement I have taken some of the advertisements like “The Axe Effect”, “Fair and Lovely”, “Sprite”, “Mama Chicken Cracker” and “Sun silk Conditioner”. Besides these advertisements also we find most of the advertisement are stereotyping the role of female that they are confined to the same primitive role that was given to them during earlier period of civilization.

Advertisement in the modern time is found in all forms and shapes. They reinforce gender stereotypes and gender roles, using gratuitous female nudity or sex to sell unrelated products, and for marginalizing women from advertising and its industry. Many forms of media such as magazines and television stations financially benefit from these sexist advertisements as they gain the majority of their revenue from the companies who place ads with them. Consumers are subconsciously enticed to buy products by companies who believe that it is okay to use women’s’ bodies in a sexual way to make their brand “cool”.

This is an unhealthy way to reach goals. Due to these females have to face humiliation to view themselves as a weaker sex. Later on this may results into depression and other long-term psychological diseases. In my view, media ethics should be built to raise the status of woman in the society and give them the due respect but not degrade them by such stereotype portrayal.

• Reference: Hall, Stuart.  Representation Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices
• “Why Women and Girls must fight The Addictive Power of Why Women And Girls must fight The Addictive Power of   Advertising.” Deadly Persuasion.