Chloë
Representation of gender roles in print based, female perfume advertising
The representation of both men and women in print based adverts has dramatically
changed throughout the eras, along with societies ideological views. Feminist author,
Jean Kilbourne agrees saying; “There have been some changes in the images of
women [in advertising]”1 and then goes on to conclude women will always conform
to the stereotypes within advertising, even though the image of women has
changed. This is why I am going to look specifically at perfume adverts for women
and am going to investigate how the representations of both men and women have
changed and why throughout the years. The advertisements I will focus on will
feature both men and women, so I can therefore analyse the representations of both
genders. I will look at four different advertisements, which are as follows;
The Chanel Ad
This advertisement was made in the 1960’s
by the very famous Chanel brand,
advertising the ‘Chanel No. 5’ perfume for
women.
The Revlon Ad
This advertisement is one from
the 1980’s and is advertising
‘Charlie’ perfume by Revlon.
The Candies Ad
This is a much more recent
advertisement, advertising Candies’
fragrances for men and women.
The Sean John Ad
This advertisement is much more recent
and is made by the famous Sean John,
advertising the perfume ‘Unforgivable’
for women.
The way women are represented in the Chanel advert in the 1960’s shows that
young women at the time were being targeted for many reasons. The woman is the
centre focus of this advert, as she stands out amongst the men in the background.
She is wearing a sophisticated white dress, connoting purity and innocence and looks
to be laughing; she is a very beautiful woman that any woman in this era would
aspire to be like. The mise-en-scene shows that the people in the advert lead an
extravagant lifestyle, as the men are wearing suits and the curtains around them
look long and silk like. The men could be seen as almost being predators, as they are
looking at her and holding her hands whilst they walk down the stairs, as if they are
in competition. However, this is very typical of gender roles at the time, but looking
at the 21st Century, there is a huge contrast. Despite this, the woman looks very in
control as she walks in front, looking like she is enjoying the male company. In
contrast to this, the men could be showing what we would consider today ‘old
fashioned’ values; they look to protect honour and respect the woman in the image
while also showing her off as a beautiful accessory, suggesting a by gone era much
different to modern ideologies. This advert is in black and white, which in my opinion
makes it timeless and sophisticated, which is something the other three
advertisements I am looking at do not have.
The Sean John advert, which is much more recent, shows the perfume
‘Unforgivable’. By looking at the image at first, the male looks unforgivable himself;
he looks to be forcing himself onto the woman and she looks very uncomfortable,
making me as a female not want to buy this perfume. Laura Mulvey’s theory ‘The
male gaze’2 is relevant in this advert, as the woman is an object for the male target
audience. She argued that the controlling gaze of a text is always male. The angle of
the camera is looking up on the couple, making the viewer feel week and also makes
it clear that the woman in the image is weak and submissive as well. However, from
looking at the quote from Sean John, put in small text in comparison to the rest of
the advert, it almost makes the woman look in the wrong; ‘Life Without Passion Is
Unforgivable’. This slogan for the perfume suggests it was written by a male, as it
looks like a sex game to him and she is not giving him the passion he feels is right,
making her the unforgivable one in his eyes. Many women would disagree with this,
as this is a very aggressive looking image and personally I feel that this has a more
male approach and would not appeal to women as much as the other three texts I’m
looking at. The representations in the advertisement make the man look even more
in the wrong. The earring he is wearing, along with the chain around the wrist and
the dark glasses could be signifiers of black gang culture and being rough, which
clearly comes across in this advert. The way the woman is pressed up against the
wall, with the man’s arms around her makes her the least in control in this
advertisement. Similar to the theorist Barker, I think this stereotype is wrong and
misrepresents women as submissive to men. This view creates patriarchal gender
roles, which could be considered wrong to another cultural interpretation. For
example, this image could be showing the dominant female, as it suggests the
affluent looking woman enjoys being controlled by the male creating a form of role
play between the couple. This could suggest the start of equality of gender roles
within society. Also, the man looks equally as affluent with his suit and jewellery,
making the advert appeal to middle or upper class females. This text is clearly a more
modern advertisement, as the image of the upper class, black male being in a
dominant position would arguably not have been an occurrence in less recent years
and now it is more acceptable for a woman to be more in control of their sexuality,
which is something radical feminist Catharine A. MacKinnon claims the law always
prevented; " It ensures male control over female sexuality”3. One thing that stands
out to me is the subtle hint of sexual references in the Sean John advert in contrast
to the Chanel one, which has no such thing. This is typical of the 60’s, so when did
adverts start to show sexual relationships between males and females in
advertising?
It is nearly impossible to find a perfume advertisement from the 60’s, showing both
men and women with major sex appeal like there are in the majority today. I do not
believe this is because of the older target audience; people just seem more
respectful, especially of women in this era, no matter what age market the product is
aimed at. The earliest advert I could find with any remote sexual references in is in
the Revlon ad, which was not made until the 1980s. This could show limitations in
print based advertising before this time, but is unlikely to be caused by limitations of
censorship, as sex had been used to sell for a number of years before this
advertisement. The 60s saw the Advertising Standards Authority created, making
regulations to protect the change in advertising content and to make sure there
were no limits to what would be seen by the public. This was done because of the
changing ideologies within that society. These ever changing values have meant that
the sexual images used nowadays are a lot more explicit and suggestive. From
looking at the Revlon advert, surprisingly and different from today, the woman in the
image is seen as the dominant gender, whereas the male is submissive. Both the
man and the woman in this advert are represented as confident, affluent business
people, suggested by the smart clothing, the newspaper in the man’s hand and the
briefcase the woman is holding. This advertisement challenges Lacey’s theory, as he
believes blonde females are represented as unintelligent people; however, the
blonde woman in this advert would be the selling point for women, as she is
feminine, looks very successful and has a clear confidence when it comes to men;
arguably every woman’s dream. With the perfume being targeted at women, this
gives the name of ‘Charlie’ connotations of being a strong and ‘in control’ woman
and the slogan ‘She’s Very Charlie’ makes the target audience think that by wearing
this perfume, they can be the same. At this time, third wave feminism meant that all
types of women were being acknowledged for being equal and there was no specific
definition for a woman or their place in society. The Revlon advert shows this
independent, equal woman, which at that time would have really stood out to their
target audience of women and made them pick up the perfume advertised.
The image of the dominant female in the Revlon advert make me question if it was
done because the perfumes are made for and therefore targeted at women? I don’t
think this is the case, as by looking at the more recent advertisement by Candies, the
man is positioned to look in control of the situation. The image shows him managing
the keyboard that controls the very phallic rocket on the screen, which has been
targeted towards the female in an extremely sexualised way. This objectifies the
woman, as she cannot see what is on the screen, so potentially does not know how
the man is treating her. The use of mise-en-scene with her clothes and makeup does
however continue the clear sexualised theme of this advert; she is wearing a
revealing, low cut pink top with small shorts, revealing the majority of her legs and
has clearly got a lot of makeup on her face, suggesting that she does in fact want to
be viewed in a sexual way. From the theorist Panfosky’s point of view, the woman in
the Candies advertisement would instantly be stereotyped as promiscuous from
these elements, but also for the way she is sitting with her legs positioned open and
the highly sexual ‘pout’ she expresses on her face with the phallic like perfume bottle
in her hand. The way she is holding the bottle next to her face and mouth could be
suggestive of oral sex, making the sexual hints in this advert an obvious appealing
selling point to the young audience of both genders, roughly 18 to 25 years old. It
could be argued that this advert does not target women because of the dominant
male, but from looking at the Sexual Objectification theory by Ariel Levy, she says
women get a certain amount of satisfaction from being viewed physically for
pleasure, because of the society we live in being highly ‘sexed-up’. She argues that
women strive to be the ‘hottest’ woman, but should not play by men’s rules by being
objectified. In this advert the man is sat with an expression of being smug on his
face, making him seem very in control. He is sat back wearing a vest showing tattoos
on his arm perhaps suggesting he is very vain.
To end my research, I tried to look for a recent, non sexualised advertisement
targeted at the same young audience of the Candies advert. I found this an
impossible task, coming to the conclusion that as the years have gone on, perfume
advertisements for young women have become much more sexualised in recent
eras. This is a reflection on modern culture and the youth of today and like the study
of ‘Sex in Advertising’ by Gallup and Robinson it is clear that ‘sex sells’. The research I
have done has shown me that the representation of gender roles in print based,
female perfume adverts has evolved with society’s ever changing ideologies; I have
found that gender is very fluid and we learn to be a certain gender. Again, this shows
how we are brought up and how the culture around us changes, which is reflected in
the modern gender equality shown in the more recent adverts.
Word Count: 1934
Bibliography
1. Kilbourne, J (1990) Media and values: issue 49, Malibu CA: Centre for Media
Literacy,
2. Chaudhuri, S (2006) Feminist film theorists, Taylor & Francis
3. MacKinnon, C, Critical Legal Studies – Feminist Legal Criticism
http://law.jrank.org/pages/5889/Critical-Legal-Studies-Feminist-Legal-Criticism.html