Attitude Predictive of Violence Against Women

Categories: Advertising Psychology Sexuality Violence Against Women

Essay, Pages 6 (1451 words)

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When one goes to the doctor’s office, they check in at the front desk. Afterward, they will go to the waiting area and wait for the doctor, to assess my needs. While I wait patiently, I begin to look through the pages of a magazine on the table closest by. Usually, I stumble upon some advertisements that are trying to sell something. For instance, one advertisement may try to sell dietary items or “life-changing” creams. Although all of us are exposed to these advertisements on a daily basis, some advertisement sales pitches may be presented in a degrading fashion.

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This way of selling merchandise can even be putting people in danger.

Advertisements like Love’s company shows little girls in a promiscuous fashion, putting them in danger. The young girls featured in advertisements are viewed by other little girls, portraying their youth as sexual objects or sexual fantasies. Most companies persuade a buyer into buying by using of rhetorical strategies.

Love’s Baby Soft has an advertisement with a young porcelain-skinned girl that portrays “innocence is sexy”- this assumption can be made by the advertisement’s usage of colors and the composition of the advertisement.

Within this particular advertisement, there is young girl, roughly between the ages of 5 and 8. She is framed from the chest up, gently carrying a bright white teddy bear. Because she is positioned in the center and takes up most of the frame, she appears as the main subject and can be seen from miles away.

The structure of this little girl’s silhouette appears to be round, which according to Molly Bang’s How Pictures Work, influences the viewer to see the subject as more “huggable.” All of this combined, furthers the company's point of using this life-changing lotion to make the consumer appear to be more innocent, approachable, and attractive. As stated earlier there is a message being sent that “innocence is always sexier.” This little girl is facial structure demonstrates a strong but also flirty vibe.

The little girl conveys strength yet flirtatiousness due to the sharp features like her dark red lips that are sharp from end to end, her eyes that are sharp to the tips that are closest to the ears, and her eyebrows that look as sharp as knives from tip to tip. As from Molly Bang, sharpness conveys a scary tone. The reason why the little girl’s facial structure conveys a strong tone is because strong can be associated with someone that is lascivious. The choice of having a little girl conveyed in this tone makes the viewer subconsciously believe that she is ready to consent her love away. This also shows the consumer that this lotion can transform the viewer into a look that appears to be younger- conveying that to the viewer that looking younger means you are more attractive.

The predominant color scheme within this advertisement, is bright white and dark red that easily catches the eye of the viewer. Since Love’s advertisement is trying to convey, “innocence is sexier than you think” it makes sense that Loves makes white and red a big part of the advertisement. The color white is seen symbolically as “the emblem of light, religious purity, and innocence” (Symbolic Meaning of Color). This expresses one of Loves company's key ingredient for the expression of purity. On the other hand, red is chosen because its significance as, “the ruby, signified fire, divine love” (Symbolic Meaning of Color). This shows the meaning of red as a promiscuous ingredient. Since this company is selling a lotion that portrays softness is a way of looking more innocent, it makes sense that choice of color within this advertisement was chosen. The color schemes give off a pure yet flirtatious feeling to the viewer. This Loves advertisement creates an illusion of lust and gives a sense of being more attractive if the viewer has this item. The ones that are exposed to this advertisement can gather that, in order to be more attractive, the viewer needs this product to appear younger which will create a desired appeal to those around them.

Although Loves company chose to convey their demeaning message using rhetorical strategies such as, “ innocence is sexier than you think” to the viewer, it does not mean it is morally correct towards young girls. This message by Loves is the epitome of objectifying women, in regards to fitting the sexual desires of others by trying to appear much younger. An article by Paul, Wright and J. Tokunaga. “Men’s Objectifying Media Consumption, Objectification of Women, and Attitudes Supportive of Violence Against Women” describes how the media depicts women as an object which can lead to violent tension. “ Experimental and survey studies have found that attitudes predictive of violence against women vary as a function of men’s exposure to objectifying media”(Wright, Paul, and J). The experiment described in this article states that with the media portraying women, like in a pornographic and flirtatious way, it will cause danger towards women and even young girls.

Women and children are exploited in a way that can cause others to “want” them for their own individual pleasure. As mentioned, the media does not only portray young adults and women, but includes young children in these flirtatious ways as well just like Loves company did in their advertisement to sell their baby soft lotion. From the information, by the article that was previously mentioned, these children become a higher risk due to others trying to fuel their own pleasure to be with innocent girls. With the general public being exposed to such advertising, the implied bad behavior that is influenced will continue and only become more prominent. The media portraying girls in this bad and unsafe manner should not be tolerated. This ad is pulling on this sexist stereotype which is problematic by not appropriately conveying their message.

Even though Love’s overall message is to try to persuade viewer to buy their lotion product, it still does not mean the company is doing it in a manner that is safe towards the young and defenseless girls that are see in them.. With this dangerous message, little girls might be seen as more desirable, and this can prompt more rape cases, which can be shown by Marty Machia, the author of “Sexualized Innocence: Effects of Magazine Ads Portraying Adult Women as Sexy Little Girls.” Machia discusses that from another source, by Walkerdine that, “representation of little girls as sexy adults and adult women as sexy little girls will invite men to view young girls as sexually available.” This is an extremely wrong and foul outlook towards little girls because, now, people may aim their own sexual interests toward these young girls for their own self-pleasure.

Marty Machia also includes another source by Klapper, “depiction of adult women as sexy girls can be seen as reinforcing the norm that youth and submissiveness are ideal traits for a sex partner”( Marchia). This creates an illusion to adult women that being a young, submissive girl is the only way to be seen as sexually desirable. This is a horrible mentality to have because it encourages people to love others not for their personality but because they fit their sexual fantasies. Advertisements that depict young girls as sexy – just as Loves does – only fuels the fire: advocating lustful attitudes and encouraging females to meet the supposed expectation set by society as a whole. And can put young girls in danger and/or sexualized position

Companies like Loves demonstrate how they only have one thing in mind, which is to make money and to do anything to get this money in their huge pockets. Even if they have to portray little girls in a promiscuos fashion putting them and other girls in danger to be used for sexual pleasure. When companies give little girls these bad appearances it causes the little girls to be viewed as more for sexual objects rather than kids they are that are filled with joyful spirits. Companies like Loves have tactics of making people believe in what they want the viewer to believe in like “innocence is sexy”. Big Companies have rhetorical devices like colors and forming advertisements to prove that trying to look younger may make the viewer more attractive. The company use these strategies to try to control the viewer to buy their product. The purpose to seeing this advertisement is to realize that the company is trying to sell the viewer an object at any means necessary to make money to the big company's bank accounts.