"Hail to the V"
"Reduces the women to her body, and only values her only as a sex object"(p. 208) is a complete understatement for this summers eve ad. At first glance, the ad seems very empowering showing women in positions of power, but then it shows men heroically battling for "the prize" which in this case is a women right? wrong the end of the ad makes it pretty clear why women have positions of power and why men are fighting for her, she's not being objectified for their beauty like what it seems like instead they are being objectified because they have a vagina. this is made most explicit when it says show "it a little love" and its slogan "hail to the v". at the beginning with the women looking out with her hands raised at her people she is actually forming a v as well. what this ad really tells me is that women are only valuable because they have a vagina. but summers eve does not stop there. they have an online campaign blog to replace the word "awesome" with "vaginal" because they believe everything awesome should be associated with the vagina. this takes the issues of Objectification and Commodification to another level completely dehumanizing women and seeing them only as vagina's.
Kirk, Gwyn and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's lives and multicultural perspectives. fifth ed. New York, NY McGraw-Hill, 2010.
Jordan,
ReplyDeleteThis campaign has gotten a lot of press about other raciest and classiest ads where the "V" had stereotypical ethnic "voices." You make some interesting point about the disembodiment of the vagina in the ads. Do you think that when people say to another, "Grown some ball" or "man-up
that it is objectification as you say with awesome=vagina?
As for format, please introduce your quotes and work on developing the relationship between support and claims.