Putting On Appearances: Gender and Advertising
5/5
()
About this ebook
In this lively critical analysis, Diane Barthel reveals the previously overlooked and underestimated depth of cultural meaning behind contemporary American advertising. Focusing mainly on ads for beauty products directed at women, she demonstrates how stereotypical gender identities are emphasized and how advertising itself creates a gendered relationship with the consumer. She explores psychological, sociological, and cultural messages in advertising to show how Putting on Appearances is anything but a purely personal matter, and how the social realities in which we are forced to live are conditioned by the personal appearances we choose to create.
Most advertisements are not sexually obvious, but rely instead on sexual story-telling in which seduction, deception, and passion are portrayed as acceptable means for achieving selfhood. Advertisements that proclaim, "Now is the time to paint your knees" speak with one form of authority: those that present the voice of the all-knowing scientist or the nurturing mother rely on others. Celebrities figure as professional beauties and wise older sisters, sharing their secrets with the consumer. "The Gentle Treatment Great Model Search Made Me a Star. Now it’s your turn."
Inseparable from the clothes we wear and the products we use are our ideas and fantasies about our bodies. Beauty products present beauty rituals as transcendent occasions, and diet products call up religious imagery of guilt and salvation. The body itself is to be anxiously manipulated and systematically worked over until the consumer "turns her body into...an advertisement for herself, a complicated sign to be read and admired."
In the series Women in the Political Economy, edited by Ronnie J. Steinberg.
Related to Putting On Appearances
Related ebooks
Naked Marketing: A journey to the future of marketing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAd Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Social Media Marketing A Complete Guide - 2020 Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Third Harmony: Nonviolence and the New Story of Human Nature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTranscendence: On Self-Determination and Cosmopolitanism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRekindling Democracy: A Professional’s Guide to Working in Citizen Space Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings4 CREATIVITY: The Power of Change Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSwarm Intelligence: What Nature Teaches Us About Shaping Creative Leadership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Self, Other, Community: Meditations on Social Order and Social Breakdown Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hope of the Poor: Philosophy, Religion and Economic Development Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnfriending Dystopia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Government of Desire: A Genealogy of the Liberal Subject Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInnovation of Meaning Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsForming Humanity: Redeeming the German Bildung Tradition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe New Smart: How Nurturing Creativity Will Help Children Thrive Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Is Our Knowledge More Endangered Than Our Planet ? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrior Unity: The Basis for a New Human Civilization Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNarrating Social Work Through Autoethnography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTechnocracy: The New World Order of the Illuminati and The Battle Between Good and Evil Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Can The Market Speak? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Creativity Imperative: The Secret of Success for Organisations in the 21st Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Limits of Liberalism: Tradition, Individualism, and the Crisis of Freedom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Deep Democracy of Open Forums: Practical Steps to Conflict Prevention and Resolution for the Family, Workplace, and World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeeds Blowing on the Breeze Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCelebration of Awareness: A Call for Institutional Revolution Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Human Rights and Social Movements Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBoredom and Art: Passions Of The Will To Boredom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Social Science For You
Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women Don't Owe You Pretty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Putting On Appearances
1 rating0 reviews