Modern Media & Marketing: Your Reactions Now

[waterlily327]

I know that this has come up many places on TTF, both in journals and in posted articles, but modern media is dripping with over-s*xed images. For example, right now I am watching my roommate play a video game set in the middle ages with crazy battle scenes, dragons, etc. Just looking at this game it is obviously targeted for a male audience. The men are covered from the neck down in armor with long swords, chest and shoulder plates, chain mail, the whole nine-yards. On the other hand, the women in the party are clad in low-cut shirts without armor, revealing their busty animated figures, heavily made-up appearing faces, and on occasion the matching short skirt with high boots. Seriously??? (I mean, how can you fight a dragon dressed like that? Haha, but on the serious side, it is just plain disrespectful.)

I know, it is just a video game, an animated image, but it is still so disappointing that even in this form women are portrayed in that manner and valued for their looks. A game that one of my college friends enjoyed was fascinating to watch because it had a great story line, but the player’s avatar would gain achievement points by sleeping with the female characters.

Marketing commercials constantly use beautiful women in skimpy clothing to sell their products. The radio ad that has been getting under my skin lately has been for a bar or event or something, but goes like this: “come for an evening of great food, cold beer, and the *beer brand name* girls”…I HATE how they just like the girls used for the advertisement right in with the rest of the objects they are selling. How is this right? How is it ok? How did we, as a culture, ever allow women to be valued solely on their physical appearance—most of which on television now is strongly altered with lighting, video editing, heavy makeup, and unhealthy altered bodies (either through dieting or surgery). (For an interesting video search keywords “Dove Transformation” that shows an averagely pretty women going through hours of makeup, hair, and eventually being photo shopped into looking nothing like her original self for the sake of a billboard advertisement).

This is something I could rant about all day, because the numerous examples are everywhere. I feel bombarded by how frequently I am triggered emotionally by a television ad, a radio commercial, video clips, popular shows…and the list goes on. Now that I am tuned into it, I feel like I am seeing the use of s*x to sell everything and anything all the time.

I am curious to hear if there are specific areas, themes, or selling points that really bother people. Obviously I have found video games and certain commercials the worst for me. I also interested in hearing if you just notice them more now, if they are triggering for you, or both.

[WifeOfNewLifeMan]

I don't think this is a new thing at all. Women have been objects on sale forever. It is a little different now because women's bodies are so obviously on display now with so much skin. But really, throughout history women have been little more than objects. Even during victorian times when women wore buttons to their necks and never showed their ankles. Their virginity was the prize, for sale, to the highest bidder. The sad part now is that women call this new age progress. It is absurd to think that just because women are complicit in their own ojectivity, they "own" it somehow. When I can dress like a sl*t and walk down an alley and not be blamed for my own sxual assault, then I will consider that we have made progress. Until then, I see that women, en masse, are considered objects and treated as such, just like throughout history. In western countries we have enough prosperity to keep a thin veneer of civilization and just treat women as things in the media, in P, and in dark alleys. Let's have one huge disaster or civil war and see how quickly that veneer of civilization is stripped away.

[maggie]

I think I began a thread back in 2010 about how suddenly all these every day things are now triggering me !!

Commericials, magazine covers and tv series...all of sudden everywhere I looked I saw women acting provocatively in order to sell something to men....deoderant, shampoo, beer, and luxury cars.

I asked other SO's on TTF, if they too were becoming overly sensitized to nudity and flashy ads since the p mess.


WL you asked:
"I am curious to hear if there are specific areas, themes, or selling points that really bother people. Obviously I have found video games and certain commercials the worst for me. I also interested in hearing if you just notice them more now, if they are triggering for you, or both."

Because I have 3 sons, the marketing ploy that I find most ridiculous is the ads showing photo-shopped high heeled models falling all over men who drink certain vodkas or beers. As though a woman selects a man based on the type of vodka he drinks instead of the kind of man he is !! It's ridiculous but it obviously sells alcohol to the impressionable.

[bethann27]

I know that this has come up many places on TTF, both in journals and in posted articles, but modern media is dripping with over-s*xed images. For example, right now I am watching my roommate play a video game set in the middle ages with crazy battle scenes, dragons, etc. Just looking at this game it is obviously targeted for a male audience. The men are covered from the neck down in armor with long swords, chest and shoulder plates, chain mail, the whole nine-yards. On the other hand, the women in the party are clad in low-cut shirts without armor, revealing their busty animated figures, heavily made-up appearing faces, and on occasion the matching short skirt with high boots. Seriously??? (I mean, how can you fight a dragon dressed like that? Haha, but on the serious side, it is just plain disrespectful.)

Even reading this caused me a bit of pain. When my husband isn't directly looking at p&%n he's all over those types of games, "philosophy" sites, etc. I had purchased a really pretty, colorful bra that was super supportive (my anatomy requires this as I've nursed 3 children - all his by the way) and his comment was so is this your battle bra? WHAT? I didn't take it as a compliment.

He even tried to get me to play since "so many couples play together" well this part of your couple has better things to do than run around through a pretend environment gathering stuff and flirting, marrying / having sex with other players! My real life can be pretty satisfying to me thank you.

The sad part of this is that my 9 year old is just as into fantasy games as my husband - they are on his level of maturity at this point, but he will turn to the others when he is older. And it really & truly warps your ability to separate fantasy from reality . . . my husband commented that the movie I am Legend with Will Smith seems realistic to him. Um, no honey - creatures that were human becoming vampire like animals that cannot stand sunlight & jump & hop around like kangaroos on steroids and have sharp pointy teeth are not very realistic.

All I can do is point out the insanity when it is apparent to me.

[waterlily327]

WONLM, you make an excellent point. Women have always been treated as objects in our male-dominated history. It is sad that it is continuing today in such a “sneaky” way. I didn’t pay much attention to it until this came to light and, though I never took any joy in hearing about the P-industry, I also turned a blind, naive eye on the way women were being portrayed in every-day media. In some ways, women have come far with equality, such as the ability to hold equal jobs as men for equal pay (or at least close to it), the ability to vote, own property, etc. But in so many subtitle ways women are still suppressed.

Maggie, I hate those commercials too. They are almost as bad as the body-wash ones that have multiple women flocking to one young man who used a certain wash. Ridiculous! But yeah, now sadly I find triggers everywhere, in everything. It is almost impossible to escape or not notice them unless you choose to sit in a quite house, no guests, no TV, no radio, and few books. It makes me sick, and how do we change it? I need certain things, such as shampoo, body wash, clothes, etc. but those commercials in particular use women’s bodies to sell the products. How do you go about not endorsing anything that uses s*x to sell their product when it is used in almost all products? How do you avoid all the triggers when they can be everywhere from the beach to the grocery store? I need to eat, and do not have the ability to grow my own food so I need to go shopping. Maybe it sounds a little crazy, but being hypersensitive to this makes every-day life difficult.

Bethann, my BF tried to get me to play those games too. He is trying to get them out of his life now, but I hate how obvious the videogame companies make “s*x to sell” and target the games to young men. I hate how all the women in the “realistic” games dress in next-to-nothing. In “reality”, if a woman was going into battle, she would have armor just like a man; if men can wear loose fitting clothes, so can women. I just hate how obvious it seems, and yet so many people look over it. Granted, that was me not too long ago, but I still don’t like it.

Another thing that got to me was the other day I saw a commercial for a dance show, and new one. A quick glance at the dancers with their tight, flashy costumes, heavy makeup, curled hair, and risqué moves made me decide I would not be watching it…then my heart broke when I realized those risqué looking girls were no more than 5 or 6, dressed up to look like they were in their 20’s. It made me feel sick watching parents who were willing to put their children through that, making young girls—barely more than babies—dance like they were in a club. Sick, just sick…

[Rockinastorm]

I am taking a photoshop course as one of my art requirements for my degree. This weekend I completed the chapter on re-touching digital photographs, which of course covered the obligatory female model facial touch-up. It took me close to 2 hours to sort of turn the scared and scary looking photo of this sorry, hungry, possibly-drug-addicted model into something.. well.. more healthy-ish. While this was only part of the lesson, I derived a bit more than what the textbook sought to teach me.

First is the sheer magnitude of the transformation and the amount of work required to produce an amateur picture. I wonder how much effort is dedicated to retouching images in actual advertizements, let alone P. While I mainly worked on altering colors and removing some stray hair and blemishes, the power of photoshop - and other programs for both image and video editing - is really unbelievable. It's such a great tool for photographers and artists, but clearly this power has fallen into the wrong hands. I knew that the images selling women as symbols were always fake, but I had no idea of the level of absurdity there really is!

Second is how unhealthy and abused and scared the model looked in the original picture. The poor girl was in terrible shape. it seemed so awfull to me to be presenting this person as some model of beauty to be looked up to. Granted, thankfully there was nothing sleazy about the photo and no context as to selling some sort of product, but just as well would it have been a bad thing to promote a normal woman (or *gasp* man) as a model? I have even higher respect for Dove using normal people as models now..

[Hopeful59]

I find it everywhere and am sooooo sick of it all. The other night H and I were watching tv, surfing for something to watch and we paused briefly on a show about people who compete in chili cookoffs. The "star" was a blonde woman who, of course, found it necessary to wear a low cut blouse and there were plenty of shots of her cleavage. Really, if the show is so dull you need b**bs to get people to watch it, then cancel the darn thing.

Another thing that reallyl ticks me off is sleazy billboards! There is one close to where I work that is selling water by way of a half naked girl. And then there's another one advertising gold buying and the girl on the billboard just screams skank. Honestly, all this.trash in the media makes me want to turn off the TV permanently and retreat to a mountain hide-a-way. I realize that is not feasible, but I hate being so bombarded by all this.

Sadly, women who agree to participate in this are largely to blame. Its the oldest profession - trading money for s*x.

[Rockinastorm]

Really, if the show is so dull you need b**bs to get people to watch it, then cancel the darn thing.

Quoted for Truth.
I'm sitting here laughing to myself that if networks, cable and satellite companies actually did that, they'd scrap ~80% of all programming!


...and (since you wanted reactions now) a BIG "F- You!!" to the most recent Sobe Lifewater commercial...

[Disillusioned]

"I am curious to hear if there are specific areas, themes, or selling points that really bother people. Obviously I have found video games and certain commercials the worst for me. I also interested in hearing if you just notice them more now, if they are triggering for you, or both.[/QUOTE]"

Sign on interstate coming into Baltimore, Maryland and advertising a strip bar, "Come, see what you are missing at home!" Plus picture of scantily dressed woman with a "come to me" expression on her perfect face.

On the positive side, coming down a hill not far from my parent's home, "The best gift a man can give his child, is to love his child's mother."
disillusioned