Week 4 - Hannah K

The first example I have is a Budweiser magazine advertisement. In this image, a sexy girl is laying down as if she is part of the bottle. Her dresses matches the bottle, implying that if you drink this beer, a fine girl will come along with it. The explicit messages being communicated through the advertisement is that it is a young, white, female. She is a very thing, white girl who doesn’t have one ounce of fat on her. The implicit messages being communicated through the advertisement is that if you drink this beer, you will walk home with a beautiful young girl. Her facial expressions and body gestures imply that she is very easy and anyone who drinks this beer will get a girl. They reinforce particular beauty myths because she is very thin. It is very typical for a white girl to be this skinny and more self-conscious. They reinforce dominant “scripts” about gender identities because it looks like she doesn’t have a lot of control over the situation and is ready for whatever the man wants to do with her.

The second example I chose is a Whey Protein magazine advertisement. The explicit messages being communicated through the advertisement is that Whey makes you fit and strong. There is one male model and one female. They are both young, white, and in shape. The implicit messages being communicated through the advertisement is that if you use Whey, you will grow strong muscles and get more girls. And for girls, the message is that if you take this you will get a strong boy. This advertisement reinforces particular beauty myths because once again, the white girl is extremely skinny. Her skin doesn’t have one imperfection on it. This advertisement reinforces dominant “scripts” about gender identities because the man is the one with his arm around her, making him look in control.

Over the past century, advertisements have put women and colored people on a lower step. In advertisements with women and men, men are always seen in the controlling position. In both of these articles, the men were in control. Although the Budweiser advertisement didn’t have a man in the picture, the women looked like she was out of control. This is very wrong as a culture we should change these demeaning pictures.

Part Two: The advertisement I chose for this was a Nivea Dove magazine page. This advertisement works against reinforcing dominant myths of what constitutes beauty because the myth is the United States is skinny white girls. The eleven women models in this advertisement all have excess body fat and imperfect skin. This norm of beauty also constitutes imperfect skin; in this advertisement one of the women has a big tattoo on her stomach and other women have imperfections on their face or other body parts. Their hair is done but not perfect. One woman even has dreads and it looks awesome! This advertisements works against dominant messages about normative gender and sexuality because the women in this advertisement range from all different ethnicities and color. Every single model in this picture is a women, and they all look happy and in control of their own body. There isn’t a man controlling them and they all love it. If I was creating my own advertisement, I would only have women models that all looked comfortable in their “imperfect” bodies. These women are embracing their “overweight” bodies. This empowers women because it gives the women viewer a sense of control and security. Women always come across as in control which is not something us women should believe completely.