Monday, November 17, 2014

It's a mans world.

Okay, so I was inspired by the #cutthecarls blog post, and decided to talk about Scopophelia from the Visual Pleasure Theory reading. This subject has always been interesting to me and I have dedicated many research papers on how women are used in the media. It's all about sex, and beautiful women. "Scopophelia can be defined as the love of or pleasurable looking. Viewers are drawn to gaze and gawk at images that are beautiful and erotic." These images primarily use attractive women to help sell a product or service, and more often than not, they are portrayed a sexual beings and dressed scantily. It seems as if every ad today uses this. People can't even sell a friggin hamburger without using a woman, who is all oiled up and wearing a skimpy bikini. Women are definitely over-sexualized in the media but I can't help but think that women aren't doing enough to stop it. I get that people are trying to make a living and to further their careers, but women can only make so much progress if there are still oodles of us who are willing to strip down and cover themselves in Doritos to get their fake TV husband to sleep with them. What is this teaching the young women of today? I also understand that people are free to make their own choices and I would never want to take that away but it really does irritate me when we have women advocating for our rights and for women and girls to be seen as more than a piece of meat, while we still have plenty of them willing to get naked and share a pictures of themselves for the whole world to see *ahem* *Kim Kardashian*. Call me a prude, call me naive, but that seems to me like it's a step in the wrong direction. These women still get more attention than the others, who are advocating for change and respect. We want good, strong women to be the focus. And hell, if women can be sexualized in this manner, and this often, why can't men? Equality right?

5 comments:

  1. I agree with this. Women are very objectified in media. It's not often, if at all, that you see a women who is not thin, and good looking on TV, For commercials, or main women characters in shows or movies, are always good looking, thin, the stereo typical women that society deems fit for women, It's sad but true. I do however think that it's the same with me. Both sides are given what could be considered a model to be like in the media.

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  2. Men are objectified in the advertising world. How often do you see an old, fat, bald man in commercials? It's pretty rare. I do agree that the women's side is more extreme. But men, to a point, are objectified. The muscley, tall, dark, and handsome man is what girls have been taught to want their entire lives just as boys have been taught to like the short, thin, big breasted women. The publishing of women is much worse but the same principle applies to men.

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  3. I defiantly agree with this. Its along the same lines with the movie Miss Representation, that we talked about in the beginning of the semester. Women are expected to be at a higher standard. The media makes it seem like women must look perfect 24/7 even though it is impossible. Men don't think twice when a commercial comes on and a women is half naked but if one comes on of a man half naked they think its insane. To me there's no difference I don't think there should be anyone shown half naked no mater the gender.

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  4. This is one of my favorite commercials, I don't remember what brought it up, but I've been thinking about it lately. It seems to me to be a sex appeal commercial for women--but the man is fully dressed. What do you think?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VXZ8RfeHe0

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  5. Another problem I see for women in the entertainment industry is that if they do things such as this commercial then they get more work but if they decide to not show off skin then they get no work. The ones that do move on into something more serious as the others don't. It's between a rock and a hard place.

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