Sexism is something that is evident in every aspect of life. Much like racism and homophobia it is overlook by those who are perpetrating the act. Sexism as defined by the text is rooted in social institutions, such as the family, education, religion, government, law and the media (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 15). When something is this rooted within our system it becomes very difficult to not participate in it throughout a daily basis. Although most of this is unconscious and meant with no outward harm, there are those who delve into sexism as a means to be remembered, get noticed, or simply to pry on emotions to sell a product. This tactic is exemplified time and time again through the media.
This ad supplied by the Imedeen skin care line is knowingly using a sexist image and text as a means to be remembered for their product line. “My secret to beautiful skin? I swallow.” This is quite obviously a reference to oral sex. Not only is this just unnecessarily disgusting, it’s belittling. According to Imedeen’s home page their product is a pill that is taken orally. However, the word choice and ad image leaves very little room for it to be interpreted any other way. Only the top fourth of the model is shown in this ad and the focal point is the words that are conveniently situated next to the models breasts not her face. The girl is passively lying on a bed with her eyes looking away from the camera, in a flesh colored night gown, with her mouth slightly open. The skin care products Imedeen is selling has nothing to do with beds or sleeping for that matter so there is no apparent valid reason for the location of this ad, not to mention the woman’s rather passive stance. She is lying on the bed with her eyes away from the camera suggesting that she is not powerful enough to make eye contact with the viewers. Her slightly open mouth and open arms suggest to the viewer that she is lying in wait of something, something to swallow perhaps? Also, the act of swallowing (in this interpretation) shows that she is not capable of perceiving herself as beautiful unless she receives something from a man. As she lies in wait for her all powerful skin renewing man liquid the ad implies that she is venerable, unbeautiful and incapable of changing her circumstances on her own.
Women are constantly subjectified to beauty norms and ideals that are supplied by the western view point. Essentially every aspect of the female mind and body is critiqued to mesh with the assumed social standards of the time period, as Kirk and Okazawa-Rey point out women are often reduced to nothing but bodies used for selling products or bearing children (208). There are many companies that have made the effort to use ‘real’ women in their marketing but the effort has almost gone unnoticed. The majority of firms use airbrushed, surgically altered females that appear to be incomplete without their male counterpart as the advertisement above so clearly demonstrates.
Works cited
Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives Multicultural Perspectives 5th ed. New York, McGraw-Hill, 2010.
Imedeen. 5 Feb. 2010. < http://www.imedeen.us/>.
Very awesome job with your analysis, I Ccompletely agree this ad is disguising. I also agree with you interpretation of the "swallow" theme. This ad is correlating women looking beautiful with satisfying her man. And her position does look very vulnerable, almost like she has nothing else to do expect wait for her pretty skin. This ad also has underlying tones that swallowing when it comes to oral sex is what should be done. It creates a standard for sex as well as beauty. I really enjoyed reading this.
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