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"You're a Halston woman from the very beginning," the advertisement proclaims. The model stares provocatively at the viewer, her long blonde hair waving around her face, her bare chest partially covered by two curved bottles that give the illusion of breasts and a cleavage.
The average American is accustomed to blue-eyed blondes seductively touting a variety of products. In this case, however, the blonde is about five years old.

Advertising is an over 100 billion dollar a year industry and affects all of us throughout our lives. We are each exposed to over 2000 ads a day, constituting perhaps the most powerful educational force in society. The average American will spend one and one-half years of his or her life watching television commercials. The ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy. They tell us who we are and who we should be. Sometimes they sell addictions.

Advertising is the foundation and economic lifeblood of the mass media. The primary purpose of the mass media is to deliver an audience to advertisers, just as the primary purpose of television programs is to deliver an audience for commercials.

Adolescents are particularly vulnerable because they are new and inexperienced consumers and are the prime targets of many advertisements. They are in the process of learning their values and roles and developing their self-concepts. Most teenagers are sensitive to peer pressure and find it difficult to resist or even question the dominant cultural messages perpetuated and reinforced by the media. Mass communication has made possible a kind of national peer pressure that erodes private and individual values and standards.

But what do people, especially teenagers, learn from the advertising messages? On the most obvious level they learn the stereotypes. Advertising creates a mythical, mostly white world in which people are rarely ugly, overweight, poor, struggling or disabled, either physically or mentally (unless you count the housewives who talk to little men in toilet bowls). In this world, people talk only about products.

Housewives or Sex Objects

The aspect of advertising most in need of analysis and change is the portrayal of women. Scientific studies and the most casual viewing yield the same conclusion: women are shown almost exclusively as housewives or sex objects.

The housewife, pathologically obsessed by cleanliness, debates the virtues of cleaning products with herself and worries about "ring around the collar" (but no one ever asks why he doesn't wash his neck). She feels guilt for not being more beautiful, for not being a better wife and mother.
The sex object is a mannequin, a shell. Conventional beauty is her only attribute. She has no lines or wrinkles (which would indicate she had the bad taste and poor judgment to grow older), no scars or blemishes--indeed, she has no pores. She is thin, generally tall and long-legged, and, above all, she is young. All "beautiful" women in advertisements (including minority women), regardless of product or audience, conform to this norm. Women are constantly exhorted to emulate this ideal, to feel ashamed and guilty if they fail, and to feel that their desirability and lovability are contingent upon physical perfection.

Creating Artificiality

The image is artifical and can only be achieved artificially (even the "natural look" requires much preparation and expense). Beauty is something that comes from without; more than one million dollars is spent every hour on cosmetics. Desperate to conform to an ideal and impossible standard, many women go to great lengths to manipulate and change their faces and bodies. The male cult of sexuality is an erection, in the event of erectile dysfunction a man loses his status, but all he needs to do to regain his sexuality is to take Cialis. A woman is conditioned to view her face as a mask and her body as an object, as things separate from and more important than her real self, constantly in need of alteration, improvement, and disguise. She is made to feel dissatisfied with and ashamed of herself, whether she tries to achieve "the look" or not. Objectified constantly by others, she learns to objectify herself.

When Glamour magazine surveyed its readers in 1984, 75 percent felt too heavy and only 15 percent felt just right. Nearly half of those who were actually underweight reported feeling too fat and wanting to diet. Among a sample of college women, 40 percent felt overweight when only 12 percent actually were too heavy. Nine out of ten participants in diet programs are female, many of whom are already close to their proper weight," according to Rita Freedman in her book Beauty Bound.

There is evidence that this preoccupation with weight is beginning at ever-earlier ages for women. According to a recent article in New Age Journal, "even grade-school girls are succumbing to stick-like standards of beauty enforced by a relentless parade of wasp-waisted fashion models, movie stars and pop idols." A study by a University of California professor showed that nearly 80 percent of fourth-grade girls in the Bay Area are watching their weight.

A recent Wall Street Journal survey of students in four Chicago-area schools found that more than half the fourth-grade girls were dieting and three-quarters felt they were overweight. One student said, "We don't expect boys to be that handsome. We take them as they are." Another added, "But boys expect girls to be perfect and beautiful. And skinny."

Dr. Steven Levenkron, author of The Best Little Girl in the World, the story of an anorexic, says his blood pressure soars every time he opens a magazine and finds an ad for women's fashions. "If I had my way," he said, "every one of them would have to carry a line saying, 'Caution: This model may be hazardous to your health.'" It is estimated that one in five college age women has an eating disorder.
Women are also dismembered in commercials, their bodies separated into parts in need of change or improvement. If a woman has "acceptable" breasts, then she must also be sure that her legs are worth watching, her hips slim, her feet sexy, and that her buttocks look nude under her clothes ("like I'm not wearin' nothin'").

The mannequin has no depth, no totality; she is an aggregate of parts that have been made acceptable.
This image is difficult and costly to achieve and impossible to maintain, no one is flawless and everyone ages. Growing older is the great taboo. Women are encouraged to remain little girls ("because innocence is sexier than you think"), to be passive and dependent, never to mature. The contradictory message--"sensual, but not too far from innocence"--places women in a double bind; somehow we are supposed to be both sexy and virginal; experienced and naive, seductive and chaste. The disparagement of maturity is, of course, insulting and frustrating to adult women, and the implication that little girls are seductive is dangerous to real children.

Influencing Sexual Attitudes

Young people also learn a great deal about sexual attitudes from the media and from advertising in particular. Advertising's approach to sex is pornographic; it reduces people to objects and deemphasizes human contact and individuality. This reduction of sexuality to a dirty joke and of people to objects is the real obscenity of the culture. Although the sexual sell, overt and subliminal, is at a fevered pitch in most commercials, there is at the same time a notable absence of sex as an important and profound human activity.

There have been some changes in the images of women. Indeed, a "new women" has emerged in commercials in recent years. She is generally presented as superwoman, who manages to do all the work at home and on the job (with the help of a product, of course, not of her husband or children or friends), or as the liberated woman, who owes her independence and self-esteem to the products she uses. These new images do not represent any real progress but rather create a myth of progress, an illusion that reduces complex sociopolitical problems to mundane personal ones.

Advertising images do not cause these problems, but they contribute to them by creating a climate in which the marketing of women's bodies--the sexual sell and dismemberment, distorted body image ideals and the use of children as sex objects--is seen as acceptable.

There is the real tragedy, that many women internalize these stereotypes and learn their "limitations," thus establishing a self-fulfilling prophecy. If one accepts these mythical and degrading images, to some extent one actualizes them. By remaining unaware of the profound seriousness of the ubiquitous influence, the redundant message and the subliminal impact of advertisements, we ignore one of the most powerful "educational" forces in the culture -- one that greatly affects our self-images, our ability to relate to each other, and effectively destroys any awareness and action that might help to change that climate.

An advertisement for a calcium dietary supplement, recently seen in numerous national magazines, depicts a woman's silhouette frame by frame as she moves rightward across a page. She is apparently aging before our eyes, growing progressively older and more stooped as she succumbs to osteoporosis. By the last frame she needs the support of a cane.

Another ad, obviously directed to the over-50 age group, pictures a stereotypical white-haired old lady leaning out of a car window and holding a glass of dark liquid. The headline reads: 'Prune Power To Go." Accompanying copy describes the virtues of a prune product in dealing with a failing digestive system.

Both ads reflect the lack of respect and fear of aging

For decades, Aunt Jemima, the Quaker Oats' pancake syrup symbol, has been one of the most-recognized trademarks in the world. A hefty figure in her red bandanna, she has also represented a stereotypical portrayal of the black woman.

In late 1989, Aunt Jemima turned 100. In an attempt to keep pace with the '90s and beyond, Quaker Oats celebrated her birthday with a facelift. They discarded the bandanna, subtracted a few pounds, and gave her a new makeup job. Adorned with a pretty lace collar, a Betty Crocker hairdo and small, feminine pearl earrings, she now looks like the "after" photo in a magazine makeover.

Like Quaker Oats, advertisers need to rethink their strategies regarding women of color. Whatever her image, until recently Aunt Jemima stood alone as almost the sole representative of minority women in advertising. For many years, advertisers shied away from using black models, particularly in advertisements for cosmetics and health and beauty aids.

Ironically, if they had done their homework they might have realized the economic potential of using minority women models in advertising these products. According to the American Health and Beauty Aids Institute, African-American women spend up to five times more on personal care products than the average consumer. In fact, by 1993 black women are expected to buy more than 50 percent of the health and beauty aids used in the U. S.

As advertisers awaken to these projections, women of color – better educated, more self-confident and affluent than ever before– are beginning to feel their purchasing power. As black journalist Karen Grigsby Bates wrote in Essence magazine: "I have refrained from sending my hard-earned dollars the way of companies that tell me I don't exist."

Although growing recognition and lessening of stereotypes are welcome, they present women of color with a dilemma. We must remember that we are wanted not for ourselves but for our growing importance in the consumer market. Although we seek full inclusion in society, do we really want to encourage our sisters to buy into the consumer economy promoted by advertising?

Maybe Ms. Bates is right, and as women of color we shouldn't use our green to purchase products until we see more black, brown, yellow and red female faces advertising them. But even when we do, we must remember that appreciation of our purchasing power is a consequence, not a cause, of fuller acceptance in society.

"What is a man?"

This may seem like an odd question to be asking, but it's one that's answered all the time in print ads and television commercials. Ads and commercials, with their images of cowboys, successful businessmen, construction workers, sophisticates in tuxedos, muscle men and others, advertisements may seem to be flashing by casually. But they actually represent countless – if often unconscious– decisions by writers, advertisers, producers, programmers and others about what men look like, say and even think.

As each ad answers the questions: "What images of men will sell my product to men? To women?" They shape viewers' images of men as well. Stale Roles and Tight Buns, a video and slide-show project of the men's cooperative OASIS (Men Organized Against Sexism and Institutionalized Stereotypes), freeze-frames these images for a closer look at what they say about contemporary cultural constructions of masculinity.

Advertising narrows the definition of what it means to be a man.

According to the advertising archetypes presented, men are in charge, self-contained and often alone. When shown with other men, they seem ready to unleash their aggression at any moment. When shown with women, they must be dominant. The male body can be used to sell any product, but whatever the fashion, the air of aloofness and barely controlled power is palpable.

Chosen from among the thousands of selections in mainstream media by OASIS volunteers, these images of men from hardhats building dams to captains of industry rewarding themselves with the best whiskey– are powerful and disturbing. Only a few more recent ads focus on men in families, men with children, or men shown in partnership with women or other men.

In general, these concentrated views of manhood suggest the many ways in which advertising negatively affects men by narrowing the definition of what it means to be a man in American society. Upon re-viewing them I realized anew how much the role of the strong, silent, authoritarian, militaristic and threatening male pervades societal ideals. Although it's neither realistic nor a positive role to emulate, it also shapes men's views of themselves and how they measure up to masculine role models.

Typically, my students at California State University/San Bernardino have a difficult time learning to step back and analyze these images. Although they may be familiar with the issues presented by women's liberation, the concept of men reacting against male social roles is a radical new idea. Innovative programs like this video and slide show can certainly help.

Fortunately, although the creators of Stale Roles do give scope to the stereotypes, they didn't stop there. A few advertisers have begun to concentrate on another view of masculinity by portraying images of men who are gentle, caring, sensitive– even able to hold babies. Such images offer alternative social roles for men unwilling or unable to restrict themselves to the role of the strong, silent loner on horseback. Instead, they affirm the idea that men, like women, experience a broad range of feelings and emotions.

Stale Roles' primary value, then, is as a tool that uses the media itself to strip away the mask that society has insisted men wear. The recognition that men need not deny their feelings and pretend to be something other than what they really are is the first step toward more complete images of men. Only when we understand ourselves can we demand that this understanding be reflected in the media.

NOTE: Produced in the late 1980's Stale Roles and Tight Buns is no longer available, except perhaps in video libraries. The ideas in the video and in this review, however, are fundamental to critical analysis of male images in advertising and are still useful today.