Changing Consumers Through Producers

The most effective way to impact mainstream images and advertisements can only work if most media moguls get involved in the campaign. And if everyone complies then they have to present the same ideals (which I will discuss shortly) repetitiously, consistently, and in corroboration through the media.

I agree with Berger’s research that woman as an object has been embedded in western culture for centuries, and to remove that ideology from the minds of both producers and consumers will take a lot of money and support to change the high cultural values set in place drastically.

In order for woman to be transformed into people and instead of objects, the minds of the consumers must stop viewing them that way. The media’s main goal is to attract viewers as well as advertisement companies. Consequently we are a sex driven society. Sexuality in the west is not just in the private domain but is also a public entity as well. And because “sex sells” and is not taboo or frowned upon to display it in public, the media will use this to benefit their interest. The only way women can stop being used as objects for men to gaze at is to change the cultural values themselves regarding women. The only way this can be possible done is if a massive campaign goes out through all the companies that currently advertise to change their perspectives and release new kinds of advertising that sticks to the purpose.

Like discussed in class, advertisement producers have values like the consumers do; and there ideologies are evident in the pictures they produce. Here is an advertisement by a fast food company in the Middle-east. While the artist of the advertisement is aware that the purpose is to show that the food is hot and freshly made, they display the food as a source of heat on a cold night in the dessert to prove their point about the product. If the same message is suppose to be evident in the U.S., the producer would probably put an attractive woman to produce the “heat.”
How do I know that this would work? I spent two months in Egypt last summer and all of the advertisements I saw in the streets and freeways were very conservative compared to what I grew up seeing in New York. As a result, when my vacationed ended and I came back to the New York. My perspective changed, before leaving the States it made sense to use women in advertisements because they attract viewers. But after two months of a retreat it made absolutely no sense why a woman being molested in jeans makes the jeans more popular, if anything that specific jeans company lost my support for releasing an offensive portrayal of women.

Image URL:
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/kudu_fast_food_restaurant_heat_in_saudi_arabia