Objectified and empowered.

Contemporary culture is saturated with pornographic imagery, which isn’t news at all. It gets to a point where a strong method for companies to consider marketing is by sexualizing people in the presence of what is being sold. Or many times, not even at all. What is being marketed so frequently are ideologies, the good old “buy this and you’ll be just as sexy as this virtually nude model (or models).” The object hardly matters at all for so many advertisements because the ad itself relies on sex. This is all too frequently portrayed through objectification or empowerment. Models are easily reduced to a sexual act and a commodity. Empowerment is used very commonly to sell products to women, especially when we consider the long fight that is still without full success against male dominance.

These 2 photos graphs show quite an obvious display of succumbing to male dominance, and in do so, seems to be empowered. The first ad, a female shaving her face, wearing nothing but the designer JBS’s underwear, and a small title that says “men don’t want to look at either men” presents the female as a male, though she is clearly a female, suggests she is empowered by the orgasmic look on her face, and her liberation from her clothing- nothing more than just men’s underwear. An even greater problem with this ad is the title. This adds a whole other dimension to the situation, which enforces the iconic male subconscious, and tells the male that he is to look at nothing but females. It assumes that if you don’t want to look at this female, then you must not be a man. For this ad, the female seems to be empowered wearing the male underwear while performing a “manly” daily function, shaving. For a male viewer, he too should feel empowered, a female appearing pleased in his attire and lifestyle. There are issues that I also see in an odd, Freudian kind of way, dealing with transgender, but I’ll save that for another time.
This next add for Skyy vodka proposes the same idea of empowerment, though this time with two women. One female is black, the other white. Well, it seems they’ve got it covered. Clearly, the photo is organized in a terribly phallic way. The women each gently, sensually, hold a cherry in either mouth, which easily suggests they have got this “by the balls.” For someone to say they “have got the world by balls” is to claim some type of empowerment. For a male viewer, this is insanely rewarding, females of all races, willing to suck on the cherry of your “natural” existence.
Both of the above ads can also be approached from a standpoint that sees the featured models as being objectified… which they are, but this seems to be obvious for more ads. To me, the three ads below are heavier with objectification.



The first, an American Apparel ad, sells nothing but the suggestion of a sexual act. You can hardly tell the little bit of the female’s clothing is what is featured here from the company. The male (also the company’s owner) is only half in the frame, with a shit-eating grin. As soon as that moment the shutter was about to click, he already knew this was gold. Sexual promiscuity, being daring, and be open about sexual endeavors are all this ad says. The first Dolce and Gabbana ad does just the same; it sells a sexual act, an affirmation of lifestyle attributed to the company. The final, an ad for Cabana, a Brazilian rum company, may be selling a bottle of booze, but it easy to miss the nude female in a highly sexualized position. The female is an authentic Brazilian, and so is the rum. Enough said.