Week 4: Media, Ideology, and Hegemony
Of all the topics pertaining to contemporary advertising, feminism remains a hot one due to the overall society’s push for change. Some examples of using the strategy include Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ and SK-II’s ‘Change Destiny’. Most of these campaigns can be empowering, defying cultural roles and boosting the morale of women through multiple verbally enforced and in some cases violent instructions. However, they act as commercial enterprises and this aspect generates pertinent issues regarding the real authenticity. In these adverts, are these brands really trying to effect change or are they merely co-opting feminism for a publicity stunt to increase sales? Commodity feminism analysis, we understand to what extent advertising appropriates feminist discourses for profit. Once again, consider the Dove’s Real Beauty campaign. The campaign started in 2004 after targeting women for objectification and presenting unreal models of beauty that the beauty industry offers to the public. The principal message of the campaign was associated with the concepts of self-acceptance and set out the new definition of beauty. At first glance this appeared as a huge step forward in an industry that has fed off women’s doubt for years.
However, if we take a look at the example of Dove’s advertisements, we can see apparently conflicting messages. Unilever the company behind Dove also owns Axe and now Glow & Lovely formerly Fair & Lovely which also promotes rather stereotype and traditional standards of beauty. For example, Axe, which for many years implemented commercials and advertisements that depicted half-naked women hinting at the, get your Axe today and get laid. The beauty soap brand has also been made famous for advertising skin-lightening creams, which perpetrate colour discrimination in countries where skin light coloration is a measure of success. The following contradiction brings out the fact that corporations trump real advocacy and the phenomenon that Gramsci referred to as hegemony: While in Gramsci’s concept it means that the ruling groups come up with liberal policies and practices not in the process of striving to create a new civil society, but in a bid to strengthen their dictatorial rule in society. Dove’s campaign also leaves one questioning the tactics that brands use to fight the fine line between activism and advertisement. Through the appeal to emotions, the campaign comes nearer and builds a credible relation with its public. On that basis it establishes symbolic association between the brand and end-goal of gender equality thus nurturing a deep emotional bond that exists between the brand and its consumers. Yet, the motivation persists in being mercenary. What is suggested by these campaigns are said to be empowering women for purchase, translating social issues into commercially acceptable brand slogan and brand-images.
However, this commercialisation of feminism has an impact as we next discuss. As helpful and thought-provoking as these campaigns are in ensuring that the popular reception of the idea of beauty or sexuality is changed to reflect the author’s view on the subject, they water down the possibility of change that feminism could bring into society. They do this by portraying empowerment as an individual decision rather than a structural problem meaning they do not have to really solve any problems that are structural. This is in line with neo liberal political rationality where individual subjects are said to be capable of managing their own affairs. For this reason, the depicted campaigns may just serve to perpetuate the oppression they are fight against. Still, one can not neglect the potential advantages of such campaigns in the same way. To some, campaigns such as the Real Beauty of Dove bring in feminism into the popularity culture through discussions with the aim of making women aware. For some consumers, they are the first exposure they have to anything remotely connected to feminism. Tinged as it is with the potential for manipulative exploitation of megapixels and manufactured illusions of perfect skin and hair, which remains at least partially true, Dove made a determined effort to for inclusion which would not have been otherwise made in the advertising and media landscape. That being the case, this potential should be exercised carefully in order not to turn important social causes into mere marketing expositions. Some brands all in the name of making profits embarked on campaigns that end up reinforcing a caricature activism that does not address systemic issues. For example, while promoting self-esteem as a personal matter, Dove tends to omit such structural realities of society as gender inequality, prejudice on the job, and media misrepresentation of the female body.