In today’s capitalistic society it is impossible to avoid advertisements. We jump into our cars each day to drive to work, turn on the radio and hear advertisements. Chances are during the drive you saw a billboard or two. But it would be too easy if they stopped there. They are in our homes on our televisions, our internet, and the magazines we read. They are simply everywhere. We live in a culture that sells any and everything. The problem with advertisements is how they portray them. Nearly every advertisement lives up to the stereotypes we have been socially constructed thru media over the years. They fill these promotions with the media’s idealistic beautiful/masculine young people. Corporate America places great emphasis on its ability to expand, produce, and sell without any concern of its negative impact on consumers or society as a whole. Without any hesitation corporations flaunt sex to promote merely any product to all age groups, thru revenues such as T.V/radio commercials, billboards, internet, and reading materials. It is extremely unfortunate that corporate America is too greedy to change its means promotions. The majority of Americans are uneducated and unaware of how media effects and shapes our thoughts. Young adolescents face huge pressures from the socially constructed idealism. They feel compelled to live up to the media’s ideals of what a perfect person is, which in turn keeps them buying the latest products to do so “teenage girls spend over $4 billion annually on cosmetics alone” (259, Kilbourne), and the magazines that tell you how you’re expected to act sexually. Advertisements rarely if ever, show the negative outcomes of sex, such as teen pregnancy, abortions, rape, or even sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s). Yet they always focus on the pleasures of sex, while a teenager can only perceives what is displayed, unless taught otherwise. But the continuous reminder people have of sex flaunted in the media makes it impossible to ignore. Instead young adolescents feel encouraged and receive pressure to maintain a certain sexual status among peers. This persuades them to start experimenting with sexual behaviors at a young age. While they receive sexual education courses, they are very narrow in their curriculum which excludes sex within pop culture. Students are exposed to sex in pop culture at a much earlier age then they are when they receive their sexual education courses which hold a more profound effect to shaping their thought and actions.
The fact that beautiful/masculine people are seen constantly produces a desire for people to emulate touched-up people. Young adolescents are also uneducated and unaware of the technical advances to each advertisement and try to live up to these expectations. Seeing woman in advertisements they are tall, skinny, without imperfections, and now days they are posing in one of many sexual positions naked or revealing more then an imagination needs. As for the men seen in the advertisements they are muscular, tall, tan, with strong facial features. Consumers are constantly comparing themselves to models, celebrities, and other famous role models instead of being satisfied with who they are as in individual. The pressure becomes so great for many and their health is affected. Females are known to starve themselves to meet or maintain the media’s idealistic weight level. “As most of us know so well by now, when a girl enters adolescences, she faces a series of losses—loss of self-confidence, loss of sense of efficacy and ambition, and the loss of her “voice,” the sense of being a unique and powerful self that she had in childhood” (259, Kilbourne) they are confused without any added pressures. Girls carry a lot of pressure on themselves about their weight, instead of being taught that it is normal for an adolescent’s weight to fluctuate, those who have these problems find that “cultivating a thinner body offers some hope of control and success to a young woman with a poor self-image” (260, Kilbourne). Too many girls suffer from anorexia or other eating disorders to maintain these “sexy” ridiculous standards. Guys however, face different but similar pressures from sex in the media. They are seen ideally as tough men and feel that they need to also be tough. In order for many guys to become this image they turn to the use of steroids to produce stronger muscles faster. It is horrible that people would perform such drastic measures to change who they are to be something that is completely factitious. Sex in the media is always portrayed as a positive, cool thing to do it isn’t showing the problematic situations it gets people in. People’s thoughts and behaviors have changed because of our sexual society people need to realize that “advertising doesn’t always mirror how people are acting but how they’re dreaming” (251, Jhally).
Work Cited
Cosmopolitian Nov. 2007
Aug. 2007
Aug. 2008
Dines, Gail and Humez, M. Jean Gender Race and Class in Media. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage Publications
Jhally, Sut. Image-Based Culture.
Kilbourne, Jean. The More You Subtract, the More You Add
Marie Claire Aug. 2008
Men’s Health Aug. 2008
Oprah Vol.8 Aug. 2008
Women’s Health Aug. 2008
XXL Sept. 2008
The fact that beautiful/masculine people are seen constantly produces a desire for people to emulate touched-up people. Young adolescents are also uneducated and unaware of the technical advances to each advertisement and try to live up to these expectations. Seeing woman in advertisements they are tall, skinny, without imperfections, and now days they are posing in one of many sexual positions naked or revealing more then an imagination needs. As for the men seen in the advertisements they are muscular, tall, tan, with strong facial features. Consumers are constantly comparing themselves to models, celebrities, and other famous role models instead of being satisfied with who they are as in individual. The pressure becomes so great for many and their health is affected. Females are known to starve themselves to meet or maintain the media’s idealistic weight level. “As most of us know so well by now, when a girl enters adolescences, she faces a series of losses—loss of self-confidence, loss of sense of efficacy and ambition, and the loss of her “voice,” the sense of being a unique and powerful self that she had in childhood” (259, Kilbourne) they are confused without any added pressures. Girls carry a lot of pressure on themselves about their weight, instead of being taught that it is normal for an adolescent’s weight to fluctuate, those who have these problems find that “cultivating a thinner body offers some hope of control and success to a young woman with a poor self-image” (260, Kilbourne). Too many girls suffer from anorexia or other eating disorders to maintain these “sexy” ridiculous standards. Guys however, face different but similar pressures from sex in the media. They are seen ideally as tough men and feel that they need to also be tough. In order for many guys to become this image they turn to the use of steroids to produce stronger muscles faster. It is horrible that people would perform such drastic measures to change who they are to be something that is completely factitious. Sex in the media is always portrayed as a positive, cool thing to do it isn’t showing the problematic situations it gets people in. People’s thoughts and behaviors have changed because of our sexual society people need to realize that “advertising doesn’t always mirror how people are acting but how they’re dreaming” (251, Jhally).
Work Cited
Cosmopolitian Nov. 2007
Aug. 2007
Aug. 2008
Dines, Gail and Humez, M. Jean Gender Race and Class in Media. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage Publications
Jhally, Sut. Image-Based Culture.
Kilbourne, Jean. The More You Subtract, the More You Add
Marie Claire Aug. 2008
Men’s Health Aug. 2008
Oprah Vol.8 Aug. 2008
Women’s Health Aug. 2008
XXL Sept. 2008
