Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Advertisements
I was watching cartoons while I was babysitting and couldn't help but be disgusted with the commercials that I saw. First off let me just say that the commercial breaks on children's shows are longer than the shows themselves which is disturbing in and of itself! But after our class yesterday I couldn't help but notice on the gender issues that they presented. Each commercial that featured girls were advertising baby dolls or barbies and in all of these the girls were calm and caring. In the commercials that were advertising trucks and tools there were no girls feature, only rough, loud and rambunctious boys. Its strikes me as odd that for a nation that is seeking more equality in the realm of gender roles that we have advertisements conditioning young and impressionable minds into very separate roles as males and females. You will never see a little girl in a truck commercial and yet girls are told that it is OK to play with trucks...what mixed messages are we sending children?! Girls are told that they can be anything they want and do anything they want to but all that commercials are showing them is that they need to play with dolls and focus on being domestic, whether it's playing in a kitchen, changing baby diapers, or simply getting married. Do you know how many wedding barbies there are?! In one commercial a small barbie house was being advertised and it was highlighted that there was a whole wedding area built into the house with "a cake that even grows taller"!! As if the only goal in a girls life is to get married, live in a perfect house and have perfect babies. Boys are definitely not depicted this way, but how they are shown in commercials is equally disturbing. The rough and tough image is portrayed in countless commercials and it makes young boys think that they'd be so cool and would have so much fun if they were like that too. But they should just forget about being respectful or courteous because that isn't what's valued! We are teaching such crude things in commercials and the ad industry should be more cautious, but more importantly, parents should be careful about what shows their kids are allowed to watch and monitor the ads that they are exposed to.
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1 comment:
I guess I'll take the defensive position on this issue. As an advertising major, I find it funny when people attack the ads themselves rather than looking at our society as a whole. Of course advertisements are going to use stereotypes...they have to in order to convey a clear message in a 30 second, or if you're lucky, a 60 second commercial spot to your audience. With that being said, I have no tolerance for blatant sexism, racism or any other type of discrimination in ads. But it makes sense for advertisers to show a girl using an "easy bake oven" or a boy playing with monster trucks if that is their ideal target market. Ads don't have time to be politically correct. There's this on-going debate as to whether or not advertisements mirror our society. Personally I believe they do, but I'm just biased. What does everyone else think?
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