Self-Identity In Advertising

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Seeking self-identity in fashion advertising Fifty years ago, anyone would say Marylin Monroe was the most desirable woman of all time. Nowadays Gisele Bundchen is definitely the hottest chick in town. What has brought such dramatic change in the concept of female desired beauty and identity is undeniably media, or to be more specific, printed fashion advertisement. Glossy magazines with photoshopped images of models on the front covers drive girls crazy to reach a so-called beauty. Fashion advertising has the absolute power to define desired gender roles, female identity, and characteristics of upcoming generations of young girls. This advertising poses some harm to women as it reinforces stereotypical female roles of domesticity and therefore, associate self identity with consumerism. The very essence of advertising is to send the viewer a message. At the surface an advertisement may simply be sending the message to buy a product, but often more complex societal implications can be found in an ad. One major concern with advertising messages is the depiction of women and what this depiction implies have somehow created a “frame” for modern women to identify themselves. Alice E. Courtney and Thomas W. Whipple report in their research findings that advertising portrays the majority of female figures as passive, insubordinate wives and mothers who never leave the domestic sphere (25). Over a three decade period, women in advertising were portrayed as “…sexual object, woman as physically beautiful, and woman as dependent on man" (Courtney & Whipple, 9). Depicting women in the role of domestic servant sends the message that idealistic women should desire domestic perfection that can only be achieved with the help of the product in question. In contrast to domestic servant, women are also depicted as sexual figures with a lust

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