Advertisements: To Sum It Up

As shown in the previous entries, advertisements do far more than promote an item, they promote an ideal culture. Those who create advertisements play a dominant role in dictating the way we live as a society. Through various tactics, like stereotyping, hegemony, and culture jamming, advertisers can implement ideas of what is perceived as 'normal.' Through ads employing gender stereotyping, women are portrayed to be submissive, weak, and sexy. Ads with hegemonic masculinity implant the idea of men being dominant, tough, and confident. By making these traits seem normal, advertisers are manipulating our culture so that people act certain ways in order to avoid being abnormal. It is our job to use the sociological imagination to find 'the strange in familiar' so we don't fall into this trap of what is or is not ideal. Culture jammers take the implied meaning of ads and turn them around so the underlying message is exposed, which helps us to see the "strange." Women don't HAVE to be weak and sexy and men don't HAVE to be tough and dominant, even though advertisements make it seem to be a necessity. Behind the item on display, advertisements are promoting a culture, and it is up to the society to decide whether or not to buy into it.