Bordo Essa
Kenny Stevens
College Writing
What Is Real Anymore
Over the past decade or so the idea and image of sex has become so common place that to see half naked men and women across all types of media from billboards and ads to commercials is no longer a taboo, rather it is the key to marketing. This isn’t always tasteful advertising either most of the time there is very little left to the imagination and you have to stop and wonder what is the point? Where do we draw the line between what is erotic enough to attract attention and where we begin to cross into more adult themed messages? These images however, are meant to create an impression to condition us into thinking that what we see in these ads is what the ideal man or women should look like. In the daily beast article I found online we examine the difference between some of the people who are these flawless beauties yet multiple details of their “flawless” bodies are touched up and photo shopped in very subtle ways. What type of message is the media sending if the images that are supposed to represent perfection aren’t perfect enough? Very often we see women depicted in advertisements wearing very little and trying to seduce the men even though their target market is women. What is the purpose of targeting men with beautiful women, when you are not trying to sell them anything? Simple, it creates an image of what you are supposed to look like to be attractive to a man. Victoria Secret’s commercials constantly do this with women who come out strutting down the runway with one of those looks that says you “Feast on me, I’m here to be looked at, my body is for your eyes.” (Bordo 191) Bordo uses this quote as she describes the young man in the Calvin Klein ad who without being forward about it portrays an image of sexuality. This is contrary to most of the images we usually see and Bordo describes this in an interesting way as she says “His body isn’t a stand-in phallus; rather he has a penis.”
College Writing
What Is Real Anymore
Over the past decade or so the idea and image of sex has become so common place that to see half naked men and women across all types of media from billboards and ads to commercials is no longer a taboo, rather it is the key to marketing. This isn’t always tasteful advertising either most of the time there is very little left to the imagination and you have to stop and wonder what is the point? Where do we draw the line between what is erotic enough to attract attention and where we begin to cross into more adult themed messages? These images however, are meant to create an impression to condition us into thinking that what we see in these ads is what the ideal man or women should look like. In the daily beast article I found online we examine the difference between some of the people who are these flawless beauties yet multiple details of their “flawless” bodies are touched up and photo shopped in very subtle ways. What type of message is the media sending if the images that are supposed to represent perfection aren’t perfect enough? Very often we see women depicted in advertisements wearing very little and trying to seduce the men even though their target market is women. What is the purpose of targeting men with beautiful women, when you are not trying to sell them anything? Simple, it creates an image of what you are supposed to look like to be attractive to a man. Victoria Secret’s commercials constantly do this with women who come out strutting down the runway with one of those looks that says you “Feast on me, I’m here to be looked at, my body is for your eyes.” (Bordo 191) Bordo uses this quote as she describes the young man in the Calvin Klein ad who without being forward about it portrays an image of sexuality. This is contrary to most of the images we usually see and Bordo describes this in an interesting way as she says “His body isn’t a stand-in phallus; rather he has a penis.”
Cited: "Interactive - Airbrushing Scandals." The Daily Beast. Web. 04 Nov. 2011. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/features/2010/unattainable-beauty.html>. Bartholomae, David, and Tony Petrosky. Ways of Reading: an Anthology for Writers. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. Print.