We Can Do It (Again)! Anorexic models and Advertising

What is common between a lady that wishes to see men drool like pathetic dogs, a proud anorexic woman, a little girl with a mafia attitude and a proper lady whose skirt is raised up by the blowing wind, letting all of her "special parts" open for public view? They are all woman in ads, some of them even made exclusively by real women.

What many of today's (and also mostly yesterday's) feminists are saying is that most of these women idols are not something we should just accept. Most of women in ads are not little girls promoting Pepsi Cola with a dose of humor

like in this Pepsi commercial for example

but women like this one

take a good look at her. Sleek and sexy and stunning. Or is it Sleek > Sexy > Stunning. What has this woman to do with the camera she is promoting? Why exactly should we see her this way ,when it is the camera that is being promoted? What does it make her sexy? A good answer, if you take this example and isolate it, would be "the camera, so if you wish to be sexy then you should buy it", but it's not this that worries feminists that much as what happens, when a big load of all these ads appear and they all show the same kind of woman: thin if not anorexic, with a lustful or deceptive look, touching her arms or waist, wearing expensive clothing. For many women into Feminism, the above images lead poor innocent women to go on dangerous diets, convince themselves that ,if they are not like the women it the ads, they will never be pretty and satisfied, put silicon in their breasts and lips, and so on.

But let's take things from the beggining and from another perspective this time.

These advertising women are supposed to be characters promoting products or ,if you want it putted in another way, commodities. Whether it is lipstick or a new dishwasher model, an expensive dress or the latest trendy shoe, there is always a woman figure to advertise it. But why is that? Why does there always has to be a woman that advertises a product and not a guy? Why not put the stock holders of Gap to run around wearing their company's clothing and underwear? Or Mr. Gates to tell us exactly why he'd prefer Microsoft instead of Apple or Linux software? Wouldn't that be better? Isn't that right?

No. It's not. The above paragraph that's full of "reasonable" questions of a shallow approach is full of erros. Let's take it one by one.

These advertising women are not characters promoting products. No advertising hero or heroine isn't advertising cola, or lipstick, or coffee, or even a car. Ads don't sell products, at least not anymore. They sell Coca Cola (or Pepsi Cola), Gap, Calvin Klein, BMW, Ford, Old Milwaukee, etc. If you take for granted the opinions of activists like the famous writter Naomi Klein, you may come to think that is something that evil institutions (namely international coorporations, full of evil men wearing expensive suits that go to their secret underground base when the night falls to take a deep dive into a pool full of money, just like Mr. Scrootz Mac Duck would have done) are forcing this to us. They took all space available and put advertising that forced us to prefer the image than the true quality of the product.

The truth is far away from it. Ads can shape wishes indeed, even though this ability has a lot of restrains and difficulties. They can also stimulate demand. But they cannot create neither of the above. It is not that they don't want to. There's nothing that they would wish more in this world than such a thing. But it's not possible, at least not yet, to control the mind of human beings to make them buy what you want.

The truth is, they sell image because that's what we demand for. There is a reason why manga publishers usually prefer one genre to sell. More than the stories themselves, the buyers want a gerne, a category. Shoujo, yaoi, mecha, beat them up, you call it. And we do that because there are certain things that we like to believe seperate us from the rest of society. Commodities and their image are perhaps the most essential of these things. I buy Ford because it has a history of offering to the American community, drink (actually used to drink) Coca Cola not only due to its taste but because it screams USA around every corner and in every poster. Same goes for so many brands and so many consumers, as many as we the people. Starbucks for youngsters with a feeling of community, Bank of America for good old or young Republicans, Axe for the macho guys, calvin Klein for modern mainstream men and women, Michael Jordan's Nike (or Nike's Michael Jordan?) shoes for the NBA-wannabe adolescents, Johnny Walker for the sophisticated men that value honour and history, and so on. Commodities are what make us different, not because of their actual usage but because of their status, which is their image.

Let's go back from where we started: if ads can't create demand, but it is us who create it, the ads that stimulate it and the companies that satisfy it, then doesn't that count for women too? We don't wanna believe women are helpless victims, because that would mean they are weak creatures, worth perhaps only our pity. I think anyone that has come close with women knows that this is not reality and I personally admire a woman's honour and strength. But the following can lead only to one answer: women want to be pretty, want to be admired. And they set the rules for what is pretty and what is not, for they shape demand.

Please, don't misunderstand. This is not to deny the sexist images and believes of many of the media, or to say that there is no discrimination. But women aren't turned to thin-like-a-stick creatures by the wills of evil advertisers but by their own desires and images. This is an article not to blame women but to express a deep belief: women have the responsibility for what happens to them as to what is being advertised to them. It may not be that this responsibility lies only onto them, but they hold the bigger burden of it, for it is their lives that it is effecting. I am more than sure that women can shape things differently, change the current status by realising the above and changing their own prejudies against their body. For this has happened again. As great Rosie would say: WE CAN DO IT (AGAIN)!

p.s. to my foxy. I am waiting for your reply