I know I am posting this late. However, I think its better late than never to give my opinion. Here are some quotes that I picked out that triggered a few thoughts in me:
"When we are sold these products, we are sold these models of lifestyle"
I thought this was a fascinating interpretation of how we pick out a specific brand of a product because of the way we correlate it to our own lifestyle. I never gave this much thought- but I am a total sucker for this. I have always only bought Dawn soap because on the bottle it says that they use the soap to clean animals that have been affected by oil spills. I've never done research to find out of this is true- but it touches to my humanitarian heart and for some reason my body jumps to that bottle, even if it holds no truth in actuality.
"since their effect is to teach children how to be as adults, to suggest to adults how to be hip, and to show seniors how hip they once were and could still be"
This scares me because of how sexualized the advertisements really are. Not only will girls start smoking or drinking because they think it will make them popular but they also think it will make them sexy. It can then be difficult for young girls to imagine being sexy without being under the influence of any drug or alcohol.
"However, a third group exists between the first two: couples. Whether it be between the placement of two glasses of scotch on the rocks next to an open bottle, or by the gaze of a bachelor at an available young woman, couples could be expressed through the suggestion of inanimate objects or by the straightfoward depiction of courtship (at its most romantic and transparent)."
I NEVER noticed this. To be honest, I rarely see advertisements for cigarettes and alcohol. It's almost as if I have to look for them. Also, since this is not a product I'm interested in I may not see them. This again sends a message to young women and men that this is a very good hobby to engage in with significant others. It may be hard to change this schema once it is embedded.
"Virginia Slims puts a premium on appearance. Slim or thick cigarettes don't change the tobacco content, taste, appetite suppression, or nicotine content, they just change the shape. For both sexes, the cigarette can be considered an extension of the body (women's are slim, men's are stocky) or a representation of the phallus (women having penis envy or desire, men exposing their phallus/masculinity through the gesture of smoking)."
This is a genius advertising trick. Stupid and silly and I hate that it is effective but I believe it truly is. I knew many young women in high school who would only smoke these- it helped them portray a heightened sense of femininity and class. It set them apart from the "trashy" girl smokers who were smoking Marlboro or Camels. Madalyn has mentioned that she thinks it would be a wise advertising tactic to make condoms that were appealing to women- in feminine colors and shapes with clever slogans. I always thought that is a genius idea and its curious to me that more companies don't do this more often. It perpetuates our hetero-normative culture- which is why I would go CRAZY if there was more gender specific products but from a money making standpoint- companies are crazy not to take advantage.
I also never thought about all of these phallic symbols we have been mentioning in class and in the readings. It scares me that I have been potentially missing all of these messages and just absorbing them. Gross.
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