GENDER NEUTRAL ADVERTISEMENTS
Wood (2010) says that gendered advertising is actually one of the strongest media for the portrayal of stereotypical roles for men and women that might appear in the society otherwise as well. This form of portrayal, as Wood (2010) points out then can actually have a very strong influence on the attitudes and view of men and women in society.
i) SHEZAN TWIST
Women are used as a matter of representation in media. The ad shows a racing competition between men and when one of them wins the woman comes in and rubs a Twist juice on his face as if they are celebrating the victory. It’s a simple juice ad whose target actually includes kids, adults and even the elderly. But this ad could have simply been made with a nice family approach to it. Noticeable point here is that the woman is just being objectified to attract the audience. There was simply no need for the lady to get on the back of the man, make a seductive expression. The status of women is reduced because of objectification. Female body is used as a mean of interaction with audience and help selling the brand.
ii) UFONE ADVERTISEMENT
The advertisements by U-fone are primarily targeting the youth and women. In one of the ads Fori rabta women appear as an air hostess in this advertisement who is offering drinks to the passengers. The traditional role of women as kind and nurturing.
Another advertisement analyzed for u-fone is the one that promotes the lady’s package. The advertisement starts with a scene from a kitchen of a family in which two children a husband, a wife, the husband’s parents and his brother are shown to be living. The wife in this is shown to be serving breakfast and is depicted to be extremely busy and careful as to what everybody wants. She is shown to be a perfect housewife and the understanding of the scenes is aided by the song that is being sung in the background. The second seen shows the wife to be ironing the clothes which the brother in law does not care about spoiling and then she’s shown to cook, wash, sew and do literally everything that a perfect house wife is required to do. This advertisement is depicting image of stereotypic women. Another important thing to consider that the women appears to be well dressed and proper makeup which reinforces an idea that women is expected to be perfect and has manage her intra role conflicts.
iii) SLICE JUICE
The advertisement is advertising the juice named ‘slice’. This advertisement is targeting both men and women as it is not specified for any gender. Even children are also consumers of this product. This advertisement is advertised by Katrina Kaif, famous Bollywood star. A soundtrack is played throughout the commercial. She is selected for this ad because of her body image. All actors and models have to look a certain way in order to be hired. Similarly Katrina’s body image is according to standard. In this ad she is objectified and portrayed as an object instead of human to attract people. Her appearance and body parts are used to advertise this juice. She is wearing short dress and displaying her body in an appealing way so that people get attracted to her. In this advertisement as they have to attract target audience to buy their product so she is objectified in a manner that she looks beautiful and is fulfilling standard of beauty according to society. In real life Katrina does not look that beautiful but she has to alter her appearance in order to be loved and appreciated by society. In this advertisement camera is focusing more on her body than on her face because women is objectified by using her body not her face. This lowers down status of women in society. This ad also strengthens stereotypes of women that they are only objects and there is no value of their mind and personality. The only thing that is important in them is their body.
