I sure wish my body looked like that Diet Coke ad!
We're talking about Beauty again. Remember Naomi Wolf's Beauty Myth?: "Beauty is real & universal; women should want to embody, while men should desire the women who embody that ideal of beauty."
How does this translate into the media?
Well, it's pretty fun to look at the gendered nature of product advertising. Sure, I've blogged about the gendered nature of products themselves, but let's take a peek into how they are marketed shall we?
Take soda products for instance. The idea that women should desire beauty and men should acquire beautiful women is perpetuated through these advertisements.
Coca-Cola has come out with 2 diet drinks: Diet Coke and Coke Zero. Can you tell me which one is intended to attract female consumers and which one is for male consumers?
I'm conflicted. As a butch lesbian I want BOTH of these things. I want my body to be as dead sexy as that Diet Coke bottle, but I also want to buy Coke Zero to crack open a can full of...strippers?
The word "Diet" involves the body, and the body is usually attributed to female attributes. The mind, education, and strength are exclusively male territory. Why all of a sudden are companies putting out diet drinks that avoid diet? "Diet" also is a limiting word. Women need to diet, but don't get too thin. She needs curves, like the bottle shown above, but not too much extra or it's too much. Words like "Zero" and "Ten" are very defined and extreme. They are absolute, you can't have too much "zero", there is no more or less "ten". Just like how men cannot be too strong, or too much of a leader, or too smart.
Of course, the only time that it is okay to mix genders in this advertising scheme is when it's a joke. An ironic twist that sexualizes the male body and simultaneously shows a diet drink is funny and masculine because it makes light of the serious problem of objectifying and sexualizing all things that involve women or implicate feminine gender expression.
Think about it the next time you see a Coke ad. I'm sure it's in the forefront when we see these blatant gendered points, but how does it change? Maybe equality? Maybe change from consumers? Gender is all around us.
