Gender Roles in Advertising

Imagine that you are 12 years old. You’ve just run home from the bus stop, dashed past your parents waiting for a hello, and leapt into the couch while making a grab for the remote. You tune out the scolding from your parents about politeness and jumping on the furniture and punch in the numbers for Nickelodeon and are just in time for your favorite afternoon special.

Ignoring the fact that kids today have the ability to record their favorite programs, this is an image probably familiar to many of you from your own childhoods. Maybe you preferred Cartoon Network over Nick, or you were an avid devotee of Saturday morning cartoons but the image is none the less familiar. Another familiar image probably is the advertisements that came along with your favorite shows. Ads for the latest toys, books, clothes and other television shows penetrate the breaks in whatever you are watching to sell you, or rather convince you to make your parents buy you the next great thing.

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Gendered advertising has been around for awhile now. Companies use gender in order to sell the same product twice, once to men and then again to women. Multiplying sales mean that they get more money, but what does this mean for children’s advertising? Kids are often smarter than we realize, but are they able to recognize that they are being manipulated into gender roles that may leave a lasting impression on their psyche by advertisers for the sole purpose of companies selling more toys? Or if they are able to recognize it, can those same children resist the boundaries put up by advertisers for their entire childhood into adolescence and adult life?

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The answer to that is complicated. Every child is different, they are raised by different parents, and are given differing values by relatives, teachers, and members of their communities. While some children have been raised to recognize and actively resist gender stereotypes in advertising, others my ave parents who either don’t recognize this as an issue, don’t care, or may recognize the problem, but lack the time to talk about it.

Things are getting better. Recently in the UK, regulatory acts were passed that banned the use of gendered stereotypes in advertising due to fears that it could influence children negatively as they grow up. While these regulations only apply to the United Kingdom, in an increasingly global society it is easy, if perhaps a bit optimistic, to imaging these regulations causing a a domino affect within the advertising industry.

The One to Wear: Why do we keep coming back to Say Yes to the Dress?

The One to Wear: An Analysis of “Say Yes to the Dress”

It is the day that every woman dreams about for their entire life. A bouquet of flowers in her hands, walking down the aisle to an eternal bliss. Everything has to be right. An amazing venue with good food, your family and friends and to top it all off, that perfect once in a lifetime dress. Or so television would like us to believe.

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Say Yes to the Dress is a reality show that appeared in October of 2007 on TLC that revolves around finding the perfect dress for your perfect day. Future brides deal with budget concerns, personal struggles and overwhelming guests, in their search for their ‘ the one’. Fifteen seasons on with multiple spinoffs and international versions, it is clear that audiences love watching women get ready for their wedding day, but why?

Part of the reason is that there is always someone on the show who is ‘real’. With a rotating cast of future brides and their entourages backed by the steadfast presence of consultants there is always someone that we are sympathetic towards. Some nights it is the consultants as bridezillas make the appointment impossible before leaving in a huff. In other cases we feel for the bride whose family and friends just don’t seem to grasp that this is her day and not theirs.

Additionally the show presents the idea of conspicuous consumerism. Many of the brides featured on the show either want more then one dress, normally one traditional for the ceremony and another that is shorter and “more fun” for the reception, or they try on dresses that go above their stated price points and then they just can’t go back to the lesser dress. Whether with one budget breaking dress, or with more than one, Say Yes to the Dress presents the idea your perfect day can only be made better if you spend enough money.

From ballgowns to minidresses, Say Yes to the Dress has every kind of dress for every type of bride. Some we love, some we hate and some we just want to say Why. Between beautiful dresses, emotional conflicts and promise of a happy ending for the future bride, it is no wonder that audiences are always drawn back into the Salon to watch another dream come true.

The People's Princess (and the changes she brought)

It has been a few weeks since the 20th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana and as the world remembers the legacy of her life in numerous documentaries, I feel it is also important to acknowledge the changes that came to British media following her death.

In the years preceding her fatal car crash, Diana had been called “the most hunted person of the modern age”. Everyone loved her and it is easy to see why. Diana was not only a beautiful woman, but she was well known for her charity work around the globe. She was also easy for the people of the United Kingdom and around the world to relate to, especially when compared to her late husband. Diana’s Panorama interview in 1995 gained her tremendous sympathy from the press and the public, but also meant that any news stories about her were a great commodity.

Paparazzi photographers Mark Saunders and Glenn Harvey recalled a chase from 1994 in their book Dicing With Di: The Amazing Adventures of Britain’s Royal Chasers where Harvey dove across the front of Diana's Audi for the perfect shot just before their prey reached the safety of Kensington Palace. For the photographers it was business as usual while chasing the Princess. For Diana it was a living nightmare.

Following her death in Paris, the Paparazzi who chased her through that dark tunnel and the media outlets who bought their photos were vilified by the public at large. Among those who blamed the media for her death were Diana’s brother and her sons. At the time Earl Charles Spencer, Diana’s brother was quoted as to saying "I always believed that the press would kill her in the end". Additionally, Prince Harry recalls in a recent documentary titled Diana, 7 days that one of the hardest things for him to deal with was that the paparazzi who had chased her down in those final moments were to busy taking pictures of her dying in the back of the car to actually help her.

In an effort to prevent an extremely restrictive privacy law being put into place by the British Government, Newspaper editors on Fleet Street took a voluntary step back and declared that they would no longer purchase photographs from the types of photographers who had pursued Diana that night, would extend the rights of privacy to public spaces where a “reasonable expectation of privacy” and gave a much larger protections to young people. The last point was especially important in consideration for the young princes who were 15 and 12 at the time.

Twenty years on and those protections still remain largely in place within Britain. Prince William and his family can become annoyed at the press, but they do not live in fear of it as William’s mother sometimes did. So while undoubtedly as this anniversary passes on, people will remember Diana for her charitable work and for the children that she raised, it is important to recognize that even in the tragedy of her death, the People’s Princess still invoked change with the way the press would act around those she loved most.