I found this advertisement while browsing the website for Seventeen magazine, which, as the name suggests, targets adolescent and young adult girls. It appealed to me as a good candidate for analysis almost immediately because the woman who is being used to sell the product is an obvious example of the beauty ideal, defined in the text as “thin, lean, tall, young, white and heterosexual, with flawless skin and well-groomed hair” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 208). The mood of the ad appears to one of activeness and health. The woman is wearing casual clothing and boots while climbing a tree, suggesting that the product provided her with the energy and motivation to do so. This also ties into the implicit meaning of the ad, which to me seems to be that the girls who use this product—in this case, milk—will be active, thin and attractive for doing so. Explicitly, the ad states as much by using words such as “lowfat” and “best”, which could easily plant the idea in a young girl’s head that in order to be her best, she must also be like this woman—that is, like the beauty ideal—and in order to do that, she must use this product.
The aim of the beauty ideal, and, by extension, ads such as this that encourage it, according to the text is to “promote insecurity, self-hatred, and distorted perceptions of size, appetite and attractiveness” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 208). While I don’t think that this ad is trying to promote self-hatred (if anything, it does seem to be slightly more skewed toward the health benefits of the product), I do feel that it is a good example of the kinds of ads that make young girls feel that for them to be considered attractive and their “best” they have to live up to the standards of the woman in the picture. It also definitely has elements that could distort a girl’s perceptions of factors such as size. To me, this ad says that the only way to be healthy, active or attractive is for a woman to also be thin and conventionally pretty, which is not true.
Works Cited
http://seventeen.com Web. "Hearst Communications, Inc." 2011.
Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010.
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Kassie,
ReplyDeleteYou do an excellent job of unpacking the slogan and its connection to the image and beauty ideal. Good work.
I definitely agree with that the beauty ideal seems to be pushed in this advertisement. The words in the ad "see how the 9 nutrients in lowfat milk help Julianne Hough be her best" make it appear as if the only real reason she looks like that is because she drinks milk. The true reason she looks like that is because she has been a professional dancer all her life, not because she drinks milk. I also agree that the mood in this ad is activeness and along with health. Both obvious in different ways. Having her look like she is climbing a tree with easy helps to push the message that by drinking milk to then you(the audience) can also climb a tree or anything else that would usually take some effort. The health part is also pretty obvious in the words stated in the message. The ad says plain and simple that because Julianne is drinking milk that she is in the best shape of her life.
ReplyDeleteI totally see what you mean here. She is portrayed celestial and with a vibrancy of youth and health. She is portraying that milk does the body good, even though there must be some other factors contributing to her health besides the calcium enriched dairy beverage.
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