The Lynx effect: What affect is the over-sexualised
nature of advertising having on modern culture?
Sex sells.
Sex is easy to sell because it is something that most people desire. But what
affect is the over-sexualised nature of advertising having on young people, and
also culture? Is the sexualised nature of advertising a result of the
sexualised culture, or vice-versa? The main
texts I will be looking at are a series of Lynx adverts and the sexualisation
of women in advertising. While advertising has changed constantly throughout
its history, in response to changes in the economy, technology, fashion and
social relations, women have always played
a role – often over-sexualised – in attracting a male audience. Advertising is
an extremely powerful tool and its primary function is to encourage
or persuade an audience to continue or take some new action.
Advertising can come in many different forms, but I will be looking mainly at
advertising on television. And when a male audience needs to be targeted,
one of the main tools that advertisers use time and time again is
sex.
Lynx is a UK brand, which
specialises in male grooming products.
They market their products to their target audience (15-24 year old males, of
any race, socio-economic classes: C, D and E) by portraying the products as
helping men attracting women. They have used this same technique for years upon
year, with success. They don’t use just this technique but others such as:
sexual innuendos, sexualisation of women and midriff advertising.
To put it simply, Lynx
rely on sex to sell their products. The teenage males are attracted to the
products because they want to get girls, specifically the attractive females
that are sexualised in the advert, which they are led to believe these products
will help them to get. The teenage audience is influenced fairly easily, as
they look for their identity and who they want to be.
In the Lynx rise advert,
Lynx are advertising their shower gel product that is supposed to make the user
more alert, and awake.
The narrative of the advert takes the audience through a series of situations
where the protagonist, a young white male, is going through situations that
could supposedly be stopped by that use of this product.
In the first scene of the
advertisement, the male protagonist comes into the kitchen wearing a dressing
grown and slaps the bum of the women who is bent down looking for something in
one of the cupboards. He immediately has sexualised her; by viewing her as a
sex object, and assuming that she is sexually available.
In the second part of the
advertisement, the female protagonist comes downstairs, and reveals that the
woman who’s bent over is her mother. The female protagonist is wearing a shirt,
that’s wide open showing her breasts in her white bra. The female attracts the
male gaze. The audience get a voyeuristic view of the woman, and this will
provide some of the audience with visual pleasures, as she is attractive as
well as big busted.
“Midriff advertising has
four central themes: an emphasis upon the body, a shift from objectification to
sexual objectification, a pronounced discourse of choice and autonomy and an
emphasis upon empowerment.” (Rosalind Gill). These four pillars are evident in this Lynx
rise advert, as the emphasis is on the female protagonists body, as she is half
dressed and there is nothing else to look at so the audience is almost forced
to look at her, which also results in her being sexually objectified.
In the second scene of
the advertisement, the male protagonist is invited by the female protagonist,
who the audience are led to believe is his girlfriend to “come over and bring
some toys”. During the phone call scene, the women’s breasts are on display
again, clearly the emphasis of the scene. The male protagonist brings board games, and
the female protagonist is dressed in lingerie, along with a whip in hand.
Clearly they have mixed up as to what toys she wanted. The advert uses this
double entendre, to sexualise what could be fairly innocent, in this case,
“toys”.
The product appeals to
the audience because they don’t want to be in this situation and have the
possibility of adventurous sex fade from their grasp. “Once porn and real human
sexuality were distinguishable. Not even porn’s biggest advocates would suggest
a porn flick depicted reality that women were gagging for sex 24/7 and would
drop their clothes… But as porn has seeped into mainstream culture, the line
has blurred.” This couldn’t be more
evident when “women in the west queue up to buy T-shirts with slogans such as
‘porn star’ ‘fcuk me’”
This isn’t just with advertising; it’s also culture. Now that porn is seeping
into mainstream culture, the views and the things associated with porn are
seeping into mainstream culture. As a result adverts such as the Lynx campaign
are now seen as acceptable, whereas perhaps even as recently as 10 years ago
they would have caused uproar, moral panic and complaints to the ASA. So in
this case we could say it is the cultural changes that are influencing
advertising, not vice-versa.
At the end of the Lynx
Rise advert, the camera is positioned beneath, and behind the women, looking
through her legs. Despite the focus being on the male protagonist which is
visible through the scene, the women’s legs and bum are out of focus but very
hard to ignore, once again the focus of the scene.
Teleflora is a flower delivery service.
This Teleflora advert was broadcasted during one of the most watched events in
America,
the American football final, which had an estimated US viewership of 111.3
million and an estimated 166.8 million in total.
One of the highlights of the superbowl, is the half time adverts, which in the
year 2012 was estimated that it cost $3.5 million for a 30 second spot,
due to the huge audience that is available. The superbowl has mainly a family
audience, but a high percentage of the audience is male.
The advert stars Brazilian Victoria Secret Angel Adriana
Lima.
She is in the process of getting dressed to go out on a date, a Valentine’s Day
date. The audience are given a voyeuristic view of Adriana throughout the
advert, pretty much the whole way through until she finally addresses the
audience directly. This is a visual pleasure that the audience is receiving as
they are watching a beautiful woman, who’s not aware that she is being watched,
similar to porn. In the background there is the non-diegetic background music,
which is slightly seductive, creating a sexual mood. The music as well as the
mood created is similar to that found in porn – once again the lines between
porn and reality have been blurred.
At the end of the advert, a still photo is on the screen
with flowers sitting there, clearly the focus of the scene due to the lighting
used. Along with the image is the text: “Happy Valentine’s night”. This
accompanied with the message “give and you shall receive” monologue that
Adriana Lima says earlier in the advert, has sexual connotations. Possibly
giving these flowers will get the giver some sex? This goes along with the
cultural stereotype that men in general just want sex, which sometimes isn’t
the case. Adriana is represented as being passive for the majority of the
advert as she is a sexual object in the audiences eyes, until she speaks about
“give and you shall receive”, becomes wanting of sexual activities and not
there for the audience to wonder if she’s up for it. Gill quoted that Goldman
first found this in 1992 stating: “Women are not straightforwardly objectified
but are presented as active, desiring sexual subjects who choose to present
themselves seemingly objectified.”
This quote fits perfectly with this
advert, as it shows how Adriana is being active in the sexualisation and also
desiring sex. The tone and body language that Adriana adoptee whilst talking to
the camera is seductive and sexy. The voyeuristic view is sent into question
now, as the audience ponders as to whether she was aware that the audience were
watching her, as she had previously looked over her shoulder and smiled, almost
acknowledging the camera but not at the same time.
Kingsmill is a company that specialises in bread
manufacturing. In this advert they are promoting their new fruit and fibre
bread. The advert takes place in what is supposed to be a stereotypical British
family. The advert is the conversation between the brother and his sister who’s
in high school. Bread isn’t a sexy product, nor something you would associate
with sex, this advert takes a new approach and makes bread sexy. The female
protagonist in this advert can’t be more than 16, making her underage to have
sex in the UK. In the advert she has a
conversation with her younger brother who is relaying messages from her dad.
Once the little brother has finished all of the messages he makes a comment
about the length of her skirt, hinting that she should pull it down, like a protective
father should. By her pulling up her skirt she is attracting the male gaze,
by revealing more skin. She is dressed in her school uniform, which can be seen
by some males as a ‘school girl fantasy’. In order to try and sell bread, she
is being objectified and sexualised. Is anything safe from being sexualised in
this age? In the case of bread it’s a no. I believe that this isn’t an attempt to try
and get males to by this product, as is often the case when it comes down to
the sexualisation of women in advertising, but an attempt to give a
representation of life. It’s often the case that parents dispute with their
young daughters about the length of their skirt, due to them becoming sexually
aware, through the Internet or even advertising? This poses another question
what affect is the sexualised nature of advertising having on young people, and
their attitudes towards themselves and the other sex.
It’s not only women that are sexualised in advertising; men are
also, but not as often, and to nowhere as much uproar either. One of the most
popular campaigns that sexualise men is drinks brand diet cola. Men are
sexualised in these adverts to attract the female gaze
for the same reason that advertisers attempt to attract the male gaze, because
sex sells.
In the diet coke, coke break advert, there is an office
filled with women, whose building overlooks a construction site. As the clock
strikes 11:30 the women of the office cluster together at the window to get a
good view of the ‘hunk’ who is laying on the construction vehicle, taking his
top off and drinking a diet cola. None of the women object to flocking to the
window as a united group, showing that sexualising this male, and viewing him
as a sex object is fine, and that nothing is abnormal about it. The women seem
to be professionals of some sort due to their place of work and also their
attire, despite being professionals they are conducting themselves in what can
be seen as a not very professional manor. The women are enjoying themselves
very much, and they don’t feel like they are doing anything wrong.
As a result of changes in technology and a change in
culture, advertising has had to adapt in order to keep up. As porn has seeped
slowly into mainstream culture is has affected the thinking, views and
mind-sets of vast amounts as to what is acceptable. Advertising does not
dictate to culture what is correct and what is acceptable but more so the other
way around and this is the way it should be. But there should be a way that
culture should stop porn seeping through into mainstream culture because if it
doesn’t we will continue to have a problem where young people get sexualised
earlier and earlier, and before we know its too late. This is a problem that
needs to be addressed quickly, and looking at internet restrictions on adult
content.
Bibliography
Maddy COY and Miranda A.H. HORVATH. 2010. ‘Lads’ Mags’, Young
Men’s Attitudes towards Women and Acceptance of Myths about Sexual Aggression.
London. SAGE. p1-4
Gill, R. 2007. Postfeminist media culture: elements of a
sensibility. London. SAGE. p8-17
Gill, R. (2008) ‘Empowerment/Sexism: Figuring Female Sexual Agency
in Contemporary
Advertising’, Feminism & Psychology 18. Sage: p36-46
Gill, R. (2007). Supersexualize Me! Advertising and ‘the
midriffs’. London. p5-6
McLoughilin, D. (2010).
Strtegic Market Management: Global Perspectives.
Lynx Freshens Up. By Claire Cozens. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2000/nov/20/marketingandpr
Janice Turner Dirty Young Men. http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2005/oct/22/weekend7.weekend3
