reading lynx.

In doing Media Studies for not even a month, I have noticed the rampant objectification going on in the media. People starve themselves and pack into gyms so they can look how Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger tell them to look. It sends out a horrible message that women are merely used as 'tools' to market their unrelated product. And like all 'tools', they have their place. They're used to sell their unrelated product, and when not needed, they're put away and saved for later, probably when they're needed to sell another antiperspirant brand.

We can see in the background that everything is 50s-style. The retro radio, the retro oven, the retro decoration, it all links back to the 50s or early 60s. This was a time when women stayed in the kitchen, did the house jobs, and the men were successful, $1400 suit-wearing, 9-to-5 office job-types with a possible drinking habit. Either this advert is contradicting the modern woman with the old-fashioned, kitchen-dwelling women of yore, or it's setting gender conventions and expectations back another 50 years. With the obvious sexualisation of said woman, I'd go with the latter.

A textual analysis for this is important. It's not just a sexy lady on an advert, it symbolizes something more. "Can she make you lose control" for example, placed directly about "Full Control" which is what Lynx is selling. This woman is the temptation, the antagonist in this certain situation. We all have urges of sorts. Be it a societal urge or a sexual urge. What this advertisement is selling is full control over your urges, as well as a simple product. This woman is the one that will break the control. It's also hinting that by using Lynx, you will attract a woman like this. False, of course, but impressionable teenage boys is a huge market that Lynx is willing to exploit purely for their bottom line (money).

Adverts like these don't anger me as much as they depress me. Is this really the way of the ad industry? To prey off our most basic instincts, heightening our expectations and further pushing societal pressure on the unconventional? Or is this merely a common case of me looking too deeply into things? Possibly that.