advertisements

This week our readings covered advertisements for women and women and romance novels. While I know some campaigns don’t appeal to women and don’t even try, and others use women as sex objects to provoke men into buying products, I still can’t say I’m this huge “better women advertisements!” advocator. Personally, I think in general women’s magazines are trash. Yes there are some food ones that strictly talk about recipes and groceries and have all sorts of womanly ads that are just fine. But the ones like 'Cosmo Girl' and 'Seventeen' are just disgusting and yes, the ads are sexual and not honest and probably not filled with cars or beer like man magazines because the decision makers for those ads say “No, woman don’t buy beer and if they do it’s because their boyfriends tell them what brand.” I don’t care. By taking this class I guess I am supposed to be exposed so I'll care about things like this, and with other subjects I have been (or it just reiterated and strengthened what I already felt) but with magazine ads I just don’t care. The magazines and the ads are trash, so I don’t bother. Maybe they’d be better if the ads were better because it’d attract better people who don’t want to read about “having a satisfying multiple partner sex life” and “what to do if he doesn’t call you back after sex.” But honestly I hope that beer ads don’t get put in women magazines and if they do they are obviously sexist toward men because then hopefully it’ll turn women off to drinking that type of beer, or anytype of alcohol. And yes, that doesn’t solve the problem with the decision makers being sexist, but let them rot in hell, their time will come.
Secondly, the whole idea of women and romance novels being “a way to escape their horrible lives” kind of disgusts me. “These few comments all hint at a certain sadness that many of the Smithton women seem to share because life has not given them all that it once promised. A deep-seated sense of betrayal also lurks behind their deceptively simple expressions of a need to believe in a fairy tale,” (Gender, Race, and Class in Media, page 69). OK doesn’t that bother you? Some of the comments were “It’s [reading romance novels] a way of escaping everyday living,” or “I enjoy reading because it offers me a small vacation from everyday life and an interesting and amusing way to pass the time.” But obviously these simple comments are “a hint to betrayal and unhappiness” that’s just so ridiculous. Women need to relax just like men! No one writes these long, over analytical articles about men tinkering in the garage or watching TV after a long day, even though they give the same excuse as just needing an escape or to relax. I think it’s so annoying when just because women like to read or watch love stories that they are automatically assumed to be depressed, have a sucky life or have no confidence and need to rely on a man to make them happy. Guess what, real love is great and real love there is no complete dependence of one person on another—real love is two equally yoked people. So where’s the dependence or loss of self worth in that?