NEA: ADVERTISEMENT
All posts by Jayden Bourne
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8 pithy quotes
”Young, white, straight male”
“The gruesome death of women for shock value is especially prevalent in modern gaming”
”Make them exude sexuality for the entertainment of the presumed straight male player.”
“Worse still are the portrayals of Muslim/Arab/Middle Eastern people, who are often relegated to the role of terrorist.”
“The Call of Duty franchise is one of the most popular in the world, yet it treats Muslims, Arabs, and Middle Easterners as an interchangeable monolith, despite being diverse groups of people.”
“Some may be surprised to learn that the most-active gameplaying demographic is African American teenagers”
“The Damsel in Distress predates the invention of video games by several thousand years”
“As a girl growing up playing games I was always like, why do I have to play as a boy?”
Representation key terms
Male Gaze The perspective of typically heterosexual men as intended for media
Voyeurism gaining sexual pleasure through watching others who are naked or engaged in sexual activity
Patriarchy A male dominated society
Positive and Negative Stereotypes Good or bad oversimplifications of a person or thing
Counter-Types A view opposite to what would be expected
Misrepresentation Showing things in the wrong (or just a bad) way
Selective Representation Only showing specific things, not everything
Dominant Ideology The view most shown in society
Constructed Reality
Hegemony Leadership or dominance over others
Audience Positioning the relationship between the audience and a piece of media
Advert statement of intent
For my AD I want it to be similar to other cologne ads that are seen in the media, like the AD above. However whilst I want it to be similar to this AD shown, I do not want to copy the style completely and would like to go for something more modern instead – that would be seen today. I still want to have a dominant signifier of a well-dressed man taking up most of the ad, with the product, its name and a slogan at the bottom. The model will be well dressed as to symbolise wealth, with a gold waistcoat and sunglasses.
As I want my ad to be more modern I feel like a minimalistic approach would be more appropriate, with no background in the AD – this will help keep focus on my product -instead of distracting the audience with background elements – and still keep the AD looking how I want.
My AD is targeted towards predominantly richer men shown in the gold waistcoat and gold box on the bottom of the AD – an iconic signifier of wealth and luxury. I want my AD to have a connotation of dominantly wealth and luxury, and link the cologne to being wealthy as to make it fancy and to show that the product is prestigious.
My AD will come out as quite reactionary and stereotypical, possibly helping promote the ideology of the patriarchy and men being powerful as my male model will appear powerful due to the symbolism of wealth.
As mentioned earlier, I have positioned my audience to be predominantly richer men, those who can afford luxury items, which fits into Young & Rubicam’s audience model
Icon(ic) – Index(ical) – Symbol – Connotation – Dominant Signifier – Ideology – Reactionary – Signifier
David Gauntlett – Constructed Identity – Collective Identity
Audience Positioning – Positive/Negative stereotypes – Selective representation – Patriarchy
Young & Rubicam (The Aspirer and/or succeeder) And Opinion Leaders
Maybelline ad (csp 4)
The AD appeals to many people through having multiple races and genders in the AD, the diverse “cast” appeals to more people who fit into that diversity instead of just straight white women. The male model – MannyMUA- is a youtuber with a sizable following, this following may also help the AD as his followers are likely to be keen in the product and watch the AD just because Manny is in it. This AD would never have been aired just a few decades ago, where most if not all models were described as “Tall, white and skinny” – the inclusion of diversity in this AD and many like it show a slow progression to include everybody regardless of who they are. “After decades of limiting makeup ads to women, beauty brands are finally getting the hint that makeup isn’t just for girls; it’s for guys too.”
Advertising budget in millions per year (Maybelline)
The same year that MannyMUA Maybelline spent 291 Million dollars on advertising alone, showing not only their size but the budget they put into the AD with Manny in.
- The advert is based around a luxury lifestyle with the New York apartment, gold clothing and gold suitcase. The product is also in a gold mascara tube.
- The ads background presents the opinion that anyone of any social class is able to afford Maybelline’s mascara, as it isn’t a glamorous hotel but not too low priced.
- Manny’s encouraging everyone, no matter their gender, to “lash like a boss.”
SCORE AD
The AD was made in 1967 and constructs a clear narrative. From what you can see in the AD, there are 5 women – all of them either holding up a man or grabbing at him. The woman in the front left is staring towards the camera, suggesting that she is inviting those who see the AD to join them if they buy the product. The AD also suggests that the man was a nobody before he bought the product, and only has those women reaching at him because of the hair cream. This AD was created during a change in society, the second wave of feminism started and there were changes with a greater acceptance of divorce, abortion and homosexuality.
This AD may have been wanting to show that even though there was change at the time, straight white men were still at the top and the change was not going to grow big enough to change that, with the straight white man being held up on a platform as royalty would be. Furthermore, the women in the AD are wearing little clothing, whilst the man is fully dressed – clearly sexualizing the women.
Quantitative and Qualitative
| Quantitative | Qualitative | |
| Research Product 1 – Razors | Any Demographic Descriptor or Social Grade | The Aspirer, The Explorer, The Mainstreamer |
| Research Product 2 – Hair Gel/Wax | Any Demographic Descriptor or Social Grade | The Aspirer, The Explorer, The Mainstreamer |
| My Product – Aftershave | New Affluent Workers -> Elite AB -> C1 | The Aspirer, The Succeeder, The Mainstreamer |
Representation of women in video games Essay
In this essay I will be discussing the representation of women in both the Metroid and Lara Croft game covers. I will argue that both radical and reactionary views are shown across the covers.
Metroid’s front cover presents a dominant signifier of a character in a space suit, from looking at the cover it is not known whether they are male or female – however from context we know that the character is a woman. This signifier can be seen as reactionary without context, where most people would assume the character in the spacesuit is a man. The Character is presented as big and broad, typically seen as masculine characteristics, and is holding a gun – something usually seen as reactionary for men. Due to not knowing the character’s gender, many people will see this and incorrectly assume the character is a man because it is radical seeing a female protagonist in a spacesuit with a gun. The addition of the gun on the spacesuit presents themes of violence and action, which again is seen as reactionary for male characters – further pushing the idea of the character being a man to players. However, knowing the context of the game, having a woman as the main protagonist and carrying a gun to save the day juxtaposes the stereotypes of men saving the day – and normally a “damsel in distress” – letting a woman take this mantle instead. This juxtaposition also avoids the “male gaze”, a term coined by Laura Mulvey which describes the sexualization of women in media to sell to men. The protagonist wearing a space suit and shown in the way she is, as big and broad, countertypes this as she is not sexualized in any way.
The front cover of Lara Croft also presents a dominant signifier of a female character, however it is clear that Lara is a woman from the cover. From a first glance, seeing Lara’s guns may seem radical and different from what people are used to, however it is quickly seen that this cover is not much different from others. For example, the position that Lara is in manages to accentuate both her breasts and her behind – and her clothes don’t help either – Lara is shown to be wearing a tight shirt and tight shorts. Both of these examples set an unrealistic example for women, that they should sexualize themselves to be seen as sexual objects. This matches with the male gaze, and Laura Mulvey’s views; “woman displayed as a sexual-object is the erotic spectacle”. Overall, whilst Lara’s guns show that she can be tough and fend for herself – contrasting typical views of women in video games, where they are normally “the damsel in distress” – the front cover of the game also feeds into the stereotype of sexualizing women in games. The quote “For every forward step however, there is often a reminder of how far is left to travel” from the article “diversity matters” perfectly describes how this front cover portrays Lara Croft.
In conclusion, both the Metroid and Tomb Raider front covers juxtapose stereotypes of women in video games to differing degrees. Metroid shows Samus as strong and does not sexualize her, completely opposing what would be expected. Whereas Tomb Raider shows Lara as strong but still sexualizes her character. It is clear that there is a slow shift of how women in video games are portrayed, but games like Tomb Raider are slower to stop sexualizing women than Metroid.
Uses and gratifications
| RESEARCH PRODUCT 1 – RAZORS | RESEARCH PRODUCT 2 -HAIR GEL/WAX | MY PRODUCT – AFTERSHAVE | |
| UNDERSTANDING SELF | Choose how you want to look | Choose how you want to look | Choose how you want to smell |
| ENJOYMENT | Typically worn when going out | ||
| ESCAPISM | |||
| KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD | |||
| SELF CONFIDENCE/ESTEEM | Choose how you want your beard or if you don’t want one | Can style your hair however you want | Makes you smell nice 🙂 |
| STRENGTHEN CONNECTIONS WITH FAMILY & FRIENDS | |||
| ANY OTHER CATEGORY | Can be cheap or expensive depending on which you want to buy – all audiences | Typically cheap, more people buying | Can be very expensive – materialism |
Two-Step Flow of Communication
Also known as “Active Consumption”, the model was developed in 1948 by Paul Lazarfeld when he recognized that the linear flow model of communication may not be complex enough to understand the relationship between ‘message sent’ and ‘message recieved’
