Young women and advertising. A reflection on the Mallan and Pearce (2003) article.

This blog entry will look at the Mallan and Pearce (2003) article titled Introduction: Tales of Youth in Postmodern Culture. It will discuss the way advertising represents youth culture and the associated consequence of those representations. The blog will make some recommendations for educational considerations that may help to counter the negative aspects associated with advertising in the mass media.

            Youth and all it represents sells. Historically youth has been targeted by advertising companies to sell products. From the innocence and purity of the 1950’s to peace loving activists and youth subcultures of the 60’s and 70’s corporations have tried to find a way to create products that consumers identify with and desire in the hope to regain  diminishing youth, prolong youth or desire what being young stands for.

            Because youth identity is a fluid and changing concept taking on new expressions that portray independence, or resistance to societal standards, it can’t be determined by one particular representation. Advertising agencies spend inordinate amounts of money and time in research trying to find ways to sell ideas associated with youth. In this process of being reproduced and sold, young people are positioned within the commercial media as both product and consumer. In essence these representations are controlled by market forces for the express purpose of selling them back to the people they represent (Brooks cited in Mallan & Pearce, 2003). Youth are often complicit in this notion of commodification the selling of goods in this case youth for value exchange as in money. When they adopt and appropriate particular looks that represent rebellion and resistance to mainstream society advertisers are only too willing to adopted and market the modified ‘look’ as a viable product. The practice of wearing jeans that sit below the waistline by teenage men has resulted in underwear makers such as Calvin Klein creating labels that boldly identify their brand name as the boxers tend to sit above the low riding jeans. The creation of designer boxers is exploiting an expression that began as a sign of resistance to a perceived dress standard.        



Calvin Klein advertisement showing the trend of low riding jeans.



This conscious commodification (Brooks cited in Mallan & Pearce, 2003) by companies in the act of creating desirability for their products within mainstream consumers tend to stereotype the images that represent young people with often negative and insidious consequence.

            Young women are constantly represented in advertisements as thin. There is research to suggest that from about the 1950’s women have been consistently depicted in advertisements as becoming thinner (Killbourne, 2010). Being represented as thin and often idealised, being consciously portrayed as the ideal notion of beauty, creates a reference point or way of seeing women that begins to seem natural or normal. The reason these images have a normalizing effect on society is that they are so abundant in all forms of image representations. Because there is rarely an alternative body image shown, this further serves to promote thinness as both desirable and normal for women. These unattainable and often digitally enhanced images create a negative body image perspective for many women who subconsciously compare themselves to the ideal image creating a myriad of body image disruptions including body shame, self objectification and eating disorders (Harper & Tiggemann, 2007).

            As film and television are central and persuasive forms of media where these normative repetitions (Dezuanni, 2010) exist, they have the potential to influence how young people construct ideas about gender and identity. Gender performativity (Butler, 1999) is the repetitions of stereotyped representations which have the potential to marginalise anyone who is perceived to exist or live outside these norms of society. This normalising effect has real impact on individuals from communities that exist in the minority. Often they live with the fact that their standards, values and perspectives may create concern, fear and even violence because people living in the dominant culture fail to recognise and accept that there are alternative world views. One such example is the New South Wales governments plan to pass a bill in parliament that will ban the wearing of the burqa for women in the Islamic faith because it is perceived to be a security risk and symbol of oppression. I can’t remember too many people being outraged by sisters of Anglican and Catholic Orders in the 60’s wearing a habit as a form of religious obedience and devotion, yet the burqa worn for much the same reasons is perceived to be more threatening because we can only conclude it is worn by women who are seen as being different from women in a Western society. To prepare young people to understand how these normalised views operate within society we need educational imperatives that serve to address their associated power and effect.

One imperative is media literacy (Peterson, Grippo & Tantleff-Bunn, 2008) whereby students critically examine the embedded messages in many images and representations that are produced in the media. This will increasingly mean students must learn to ‘read’ images that are found in multimodal presentations that make use of many genres including animation, online competitions, infomercials and music videos (Rodesiler, 2010).



Maidenform bra advertisement 1991 with a critical perspective.



          Another imperative is empowerment which is the central tenet in a Feminist perspective. This perspective helps women understand that their self worth is not determined by their physical appearance (Peterson, Grippo & Tantleff-Bunn, 2008). It develops a critical and intellectual understanding about cultural and social messages that surround gender representations in advertising. These are called Meta skills that encourage women to modify their belief systems and provide them with lifeskills that create attitudinal change.

            These personal perspectives could be realised in an education context by incorporating technology to create personal narratives in the form of mash ups which explore the issues of objectification, commodification and gender performativity.

Mash ups are digital manipulations of sound, but could include image and text that appropriates and duplicates pieces of original soundtracks. Due attention to copyright and the creative commons license would be required as mash ups blur the line between plagiarism and reappropriating original content. This concept of creation and production could offer students an opportunity to critique image representation in the world of mass media much like the media which now critiques them in the guise of advertisements.

References:

Butler, J. (1999) Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. Retrieved 6    October, 2010 from             http://books.google.com.au/books?id=gyWuhD3Q3IcC&pg=PA175&dq=gender+            performance+judith+butler&hl=en&ei=DMWrTPOsB4SevgPW45GFBw&sa=X            &oi=book_result&ct=book-     thumbnail&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6wEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Dezuanni, M. (2010). Film and television: gender, childhood and media influence.          [Lecture 7 notes]. Retrieved October, 2010 from     http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1            &url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse            %26id%3D_64558_1%26url%3D

Harper, B., & Tiggemann, M.. (2008). The Effect of Thin Ideal Media Images on          Women's Self-Objectification, Mood, and Body Image. Sex Roles, 58(9-10), 649-     657.  Retrieved October 2, 2010, from Academic Research Library. (Document      ID: 1466717021).

Kilbourne J. (2010). Killing us softly 4. [video webcast] Retrieved 6 October, 2010 from             http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTlmho_RovY&feature=player_embedded

Mallan, K. and Pearce, S. ( 2003). Introduction: Tales of youth in postmodern culture. In          Mallan, K. and Pearce, S. Youth Culture : texts, images and identity. Retrieved      October 6, 2010 form             https://cmd.library.qut.edu.au/CLN647/CLN647_BK_297657.pdf

Peterson, R., Grippo, K., & Tantleff-Dunn, S.. (2008). Empowerment and Powerlessness:  A Closer Look at the Relationship Between Feminism, Body Image and Eating      Disturbance. Sex Roles, 58(9-10), 639-648.  Retrieved October 2, 2010, from             Academic Research Library. (Document ID: 1466716991

Rodesiler, L.. (2010). Empowering Students Through Critical Media Literacy:   This      Means War. The Clearing House, 83(5), 164-167.  Retrieved October 5, 2010,   from Academic Research Library. (Document ID: 2112784461).

            http://proquest.umi.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/pqdweb?index=8&did=2112784            461&SrchMode=2&sid=2&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&V            Name=PQD&TS=1286257251&clientId=14394

Images :

Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2001). Practices of looking: an introduction to visual culture. Maidenform ad pg 225.
Calvin Klein. Mark Wahlberg underwear ad. Retreived October 6, 2010 from http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Mark-Wahlberg-Kate-Moss-Calvin-Klein-Underwear-Ad-500x708.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.popcrunch.com/calvin-klein-kate-moss-difficult-to-work-with-hated-mark-wahlberg/&usg=__HmK2p6NeF5TWuVz4vvOtJHB4JZE=&h=708&w=500&sz=71&hl=en&start=36&sig2=qJ1I9lRU-wDPSvtf-gnI-Q&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=rg42ArwDOmwfYM:&tbnh=140&tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcalvin%2Bklein%2Bads%2Bwahlberg%26start%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1W1DAAU_en%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=4-OrTImZBIyyvgOIkfz_Dw