The ever-fantastic Sarah Haskins on car ads aimed at women:
For other examples of marketing cars to women, see here, here, here, here, here, and here.
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Breck C. sent us this link to a collection of photographs of Harajuku Girls. Harajuku is a style for teenagers in a region of Japan (here is the wikipedia entry). I can’t think of a way to describe them that does them justice, so here are some pictures (found here, here, here and here):
In 2004, Gwen Stefani began touring with four women posing as Japanese Harajuku girls. Stefani’s Harajuku Girls serve as her entourage and back-up dancers. Here she is with four (Japanese?) women that she hires to be her Harajuku Girls (found here and here):
In the comments, Inky points out that Stefani says this about them in her song, Rich Girl:
I’d get me four Harajuku girls to
Inspire me and they’d come to my rescue
I’d dress them wicked, I’d give them names
Love, Angel, Music, Baby
Hurry up and come and save me
Stefani also has a Harajuku Lovers clothing line and a series of perfumes, one for her, and one for each Harajuku Girl:
I think that Stefani’s use of Asian women as props (they may or may not be Japanese) fetishizes Asian women and reinforces white privilege. The Harajuku Girls serve as contrast to Stefani’s performance of ideal white femininity. It makes me think of both this poster on colonial-era travel and this fashion spread.
Yet, Stefani’s been at this for four years and I can’t remember hearing any objections to her Harajuku Girls, even in feminist and anti-racist alternative media. Further, if her fashion line, perfume, and continued employment of the Harajuku Girls are any indication, people seem to think the whole thing is awesome. In the meantime, I bet she’s making bank on her clothing line and perfume. Where’s that money going?
Do you think my reading is fair?
And, if so, why do you think there’s been so little outcry?
For good measure, here she is performing with her “Girls”:
In our comments, SG asks that we include the following clarification:
This article is really misrepresenting a whole fashion scene and I would like to ask that you correct it- It is just perpetuating the idiocy and ignorance surrounding these styles. “Harajuku is a style for teenagers in a region of Japan”. “Harajuku style” Is a term coined by western media because they are too ignorant to actually research the names of these actual styles. Harajuku is not a style. It is a location. The females you have pictured are in Decora (and two in Visual Kei). The only “harajuku style” that exists is the fictional one made up by Gwen Stefani and the western media.
Thanks SG.
See also our post featuring other examples of ads and artists using Asians as props.
One of the magazines for the obscenely rich that I’ve been perusing lately was Yachts International magazine.
In it was a glaring Sociological Images story. Paging through the magazine it became exceedingly clear that yachts were one prize for extreme economic success… and women were another. Below I have uploaded every ad in the magazine that included people. Across all of the ads, there are 22 women and four men. The women are, overwhemingly, posed as beautiful objects that adorn beautiful yachts.
Each of the ads is embedded after the jump (there’s a lot and they take some time to load):
Xavier M. sent us a link to this print ad, which he saw in a Belgian men’s magazine, that uses sex to encourage organ donation (found here).
Text: “Becoming a donor is probably your only chance to get inside her.”
There are some interesting implications here about why we engage in altruism and who is deserving of that altruism.
See also similar posts on PETA (see here and here) and human rights violations in Burma.
At AdFreak, I discovered that Sea Monkeys are being used to sell sex. Sure enough:
NEW (Mar. ’10)! Christina W. sent in this ad campaign for French cheeses using a pin-up calendar:
The video is a backstage look at a sexy calendar photo shoot for…cheese:
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/113146614[/vimeo]
NEW (Jun. ’10)! Stephanie DeH. sent in this lovely CPR instructional video (which also got its own post):
ALSO NEW (Jun. ’10)! Lindsey Dale, at Nobody, collected the following ads selling, with sex, archery, a laser detector, tea, and coffee:
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Update: The confusion in the comments brought to my attention that I embedded the wrong commercial. See! I’m not crazy! Just incompetent.
Enjoy the corrected post:
At least that’s the message I’m taking from this Utah Tourism advertisement featuring anthropomorphized snowflakes (found here):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78RZ-UgIMrM[/youtube]
Shoshannah F. sent in this clip (originally found here) from Bill Maher’s show, in which he makes fun of many stereotypes of African Americans by applying them to Whites and imploring viewers to not let their prejudice against Whites keep them from voting for John McCain:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iM0mUfATJk[/youtube]
It would make a great clip for discussing differences in how behaviors are attributed to race. Negative behaviors committed by African Americans (say, engaging in crime or being lazy) is often seen as an inherent trait of Blacks. When a White person does the same thing, his or her Whiteness is rarely brought up as a reason for the behavior. Whites are evaluated as individuals, while non-Whites find they are often evaluated as group members. Thus, the fact that the vast majority of the individuals involved in the financial meltdown is White is unlikely to lead to a stereotype that Whites are incompetent, bad with money, or inclined to engage in crime. Yet negative behaviors of non-Whites are often believed to provide evidence of what non-Whites are essentially like. For instance, I once had a conversation with a woman who told me about a coworker quitting without giving notice and then expressed her belief that it was because the woman was Black, and Blacks don’t have a good work ethic. Yet when I quit a crappy job at a college bookstore without giving notice back in college, I doubt it was attributed to Whites just not having a good work ethic.
This clip from “The Daily Show” also plays on some stereotypes about Blacks and Whites, as well as the idea that Obama isn’t “really” Black:
Thanks, Shoshannah!
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
Elizabeth Dole (R) is running for Senate against Kay Hagen (D) in North Carolina. In the campaign ad below, Dole’s argument against electing Hagen is that she is supported by “Godless Americans” who believe in the separation of church and state. It is a nice example of the demonization of athiests (which, as we have seen, exceeds even the demonization of Muslims these days). (If the video doesn’t embed, click here.)
Found at The Daily Dish.
As Melissa at Shakesville writes:
…Subway reminds women that the only reason they have to feel good about themselves is being thin, that their self-worth is predicated on their looks, that psychological health is evidently dependent on being pretty, that fat axiomatically equals ugly, and that no man would ever love a fat girl.
Breck C. sent us this link to a collection of photographs of Harajuku Girls. Harajuku is a style for teenagers in a region of Japan (here is the wikipedia entry). I can’t think of a way to describe them that does them justice, so here are some pictures (found here, here, here and here):
In 2004, Gwen Stefani began touring with four women posing as Japanese Harajuku girls. Stefani’s Harajuku Girls serve as her entourage and back-up dancers. Here she is with four (Japanese?) women that she hires to be her Harajuku Girls (found here and here):
In the comments, Inky points out that Stefani says this about them in her song, Rich Girl:
I’d get me four Harajuku girls to
Inspire me and they’d come to my rescue
I’d dress them wicked, I’d give them names
Love, Angel, Music, Baby
Hurry up and come and save me
Stefani also has a Harajuku Lovers clothing line and a series of perfumes, one for her, and one for each Harajuku Girl:
I think that Stefani’s use of Asian women as props (they may or may not be Japanese) fetishizes Asian women and reinforces white privilege. The Harajuku Girls serve as contrast to Stefani’s performance of ideal white femininity. It makes me think of both this poster on colonial-era travel and this fashion spread.
Yet, Stefani’s been at this for four years and I can’t remember hearing any objections to her Harajuku Girls, even in feminist and anti-racist alternative media. Further, if her fashion line, perfume, and continued employment of the Harajuku Girls are any indication, people seem to think the whole thing is awesome. In the meantime, I bet she’s making bank on her clothing line and perfume. Where’s that money going?
Do you think my reading is fair?
And, if so, why do you think there’s been so little outcry?
For good measure, here she is performing with her “Girls”:
In our comments, SG asks that we include the following clarification:
This article is really misrepresenting a whole fashion scene and I would like to ask that you correct it- It is just perpetuating the idiocy and ignorance surrounding these styles. “Harajuku is a style for teenagers in a region of Japan”. “Harajuku style” Is a term coined by western media because they are too ignorant to actually research the names of these actual styles. Harajuku is not a style. It is a location. The females you have pictured are in Decora (and two in Visual Kei). The only “harajuku style” that exists is the fictional one made up by Gwen Stefani and the western media.
Thanks SG.
See also our post featuring other examples of ads and artists using Asians as props.
One of the magazines for the obscenely rich that I’ve been perusing lately was Yachts International magazine.
In it was a glaring Sociological Images story. Paging through the magazine it became exceedingly clear that yachts were one prize for extreme economic success… and women were another. Below I have uploaded every ad in the magazine that included people. Across all of the ads, there are 22 women and four men. The women are, overwhemingly, posed as beautiful objects that adorn beautiful yachts.
Each of the ads is embedded after the jump (there’s a lot and they take some time to load):
Xavier M. sent us a link to this print ad, which he saw in a Belgian men’s magazine, that uses sex to encourage organ donation (found here).
Text: “Becoming a donor is probably your only chance to get inside her.”
There are some interesting implications here about why we engage in altruism and who is deserving of that altruism.
See also similar posts on PETA (see here and here) and human rights violations in Burma.
At AdFreak, I discovered that Sea Monkeys are being used to sell sex. Sure enough:
NEW (Mar. ’10)! Christina W. sent in this ad campaign for French cheeses using a pin-up calendar:
The video is a backstage look at a sexy calendar photo shoot for…cheese:
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/113146614[/vimeo]
NEW (Jun. ’10)! Stephanie DeH. sent in this lovely CPR instructional video (which also got its own post):
ALSO NEW (Jun. ’10)! Lindsey Dale, at Nobody, collected the following ads selling, with sex, archery, a laser detector, tea, and coffee:
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Update: The confusion in the comments brought to my attention that I embedded the wrong commercial. See! I’m not crazy! Just incompetent.
Enjoy the corrected post:
At least that’s the message I’m taking from this Utah Tourism advertisement featuring anthropomorphized snowflakes (found here):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78RZ-UgIMrM[/youtube]
Shoshannah F. sent in this clip (originally found here) from Bill Maher’s show, in which he makes fun of many stereotypes of African Americans by applying them to Whites and imploring viewers to not let their prejudice against Whites keep them from voting for John McCain:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iM0mUfATJk[/youtube]
It would make a great clip for discussing differences in how behaviors are attributed to race. Negative behaviors committed by African Americans (say, engaging in crime or being lazy) is often seen as an inherent trait of Blacks. When a White person does the same thing, his or her Whiteness is rarely brought up as a reason for the behavior. Whites are evaluated as individuals, while non-Whites find they are often evaluated as group members. Thus, the fact that the vast majority of the individuals involved in the financial meltdown is White is unlikely to lead to a stereotype that Whites are incompetent, bad with money, or inclined to engage in crime. Yet negative behaviors of non-Whites are often believed to provide evidence of what non-Whites are essentially like. For instance, I once had a conversation with a woman who told me about a coworker quitting without giving notice and then expressed her belief that it was because the woman was Black, and Blacks don’t have a good work ethic. Yet when I quit a crappy job at a college bookstore without giving notice back in college, I doubt it was attributed to Whites just not having a good work ethic.
This clip from “The Daily Show” also plays on some stereotypes about Blacks and Whites, as well as the idea that Obama isn’t “really” Black:
Thanks, Shoshannah!
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
Elizabeth Dole (R) is running for Senate against Kay Hagen (D) in North Carolina. In the campaign ad below, Dole’s argument against electing Hagen is that she is supported by “Godless Americans” who believe in the separation of church and state. It is a nice example of the demonization of athiests (which, as we have seen, exceeds even the demonization of Muslims these days). (If the video doesn’t embed, click here.)
Found at The Daily Dish.
As Melissa at Shakesville writes:
…Subway reminds women that the only reason they have to feel good about themselves is being thin, that their self-worth is predicated on their looks, that psychological health is evidently dependent on being pretty, that fat axiomatically equals ugly, and that no man would ever love a fat girl.