Gender representation and the misrepresentation of reality in advertisement was the topic of my junior year Girl Scout journey project. When this project was first announced, I was both excited and worried: excited because the subject matter interests me, and worried because I feared how little progress we as a society had made in the (admittedly short) 2 years that had passed since I conducted research for my project. With those dueling feelings, I began watching and analyzing the commercials, noting patterns of commercials themselves along with the content. The average commercial break contained 4-6 advertisements with a total time of 2-3 minutes. Although the assignment required us to take written notes on only 10 commercials, I still …show more content…
The Family Member herself can be shown in one of two ways: the ambitious, can do-it-all, go-getter mother, or the wide-eyed pre-teen or younger daughter, often accompanied by a protective father. The Sales Assistant, whether she be working as a car dealership or teaching at her own yoga studio, is always energetic, helpful, sweet, and often had a bit of “sass” thrown in to truly “develop” the character. The final category, the Mysterious Stranger, sometimes turns into the Empty Model. These women are, to put it bluntly, a pretty ornament used to sell the intended product, wish messages of, “look how lovely this woman eats our chocolate, you should purchase it!” I make a distinction between the Mysterious Stranger and the Empty Model because the former’s commercial’s are often shot with her constantly jumping from location to location, the viewer chasing after the dream of this aloof woman: the commercial is supposed to make our brains create a love story in the empty spaces. An example of the latter, however, would simply be shots of the woman eating the chocolate, perhaps staring seductively into the camera. There is no question, in these cases, that she exists for the sole purpose of making the product appear