The Gender Ads Project

Advertising, Education, Activism

Written
Background: In The Real Thing: Performance, Hysteria, and Advertising, Mady Schutzman suggests that the use of corporate logos and lettering to inscribe the female body in advertising resembles the ways in which the medical community has acted on women's bodies (1999:54-5). These ads illustrate the ways in which the corporate advertising machine colonizes the minds and bodies of individuals. In some cases, bodies are inscribed with symbols or corporate logos, in others full text is written across the body of the woman. Like the landscape trope, here the woman's body is colonized; it is a palate upon which anything can be written. This is absolute control in the world of gender advertising. The Ads: The ads utilize similar techniques in inscribing the bodies of women with logos and the like. Ad 14 is a copy of an old Man Ray photograph, updated with the corporate logo. Discussion Questions: (1) Why do we find that women's bodies are portrayed as apt subjects for logos, words or phrases? (2) How does the effect of writing on the body compare to other visual means of objectification, such as woman as literal object? (3) Can you locate similar examples of men's bodies being used as a place on which to write?
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