I knew that image based advertising was big and that millions fall prey to it everyday but the extent to which it gravitates is remarkable. In reading Image-Based Culture this could not hold more truth. Sut Jhally explains that this consumer culture has been infused in to us our entire lives. She says that “everyone knows a diamond is forever.” It really makes me sick to see how much validity these ridiculous efforts to sell us back our dreams hold. That was a line from the text by the way, that our emotions are being sold back to us by seeing people acting out our dreams. How is this possible that the wool is pulled over our eyes so easily? Well that is the answer to my other question.
This is something I didn’t know because I am not an advertising executive. I just always wondered how people can be so easily fooled and buy into this crap. Well it’s simple, advertisers take our most precious vales like good relationships and leisure time and exploit them and use them against us. The end result is none other than a dependence on these false material values as representations of the “good life.” Its really a sad state of affairs and an extremely clever strategy on the part of the advertisers that promote this culture.
I found this video and I thought it was interesting especially after reading Fantasies of Femininity. Fantasies of Femininity addresses the stock that women put into image through the purchase of cosmetics, plastic surgery and fashionable clothes. In the video posted this man talks about the “oppression of beauty.” This relates to Ussher’s reading in that women are oppressed by beauty through the social construction of women’s bodies. We watch these models and other celebrities with impossible features and we perceive those features to be attainable by everyone if you just buy the right products. Its really sad the extremes women go through to be “beautiful,” to be accepted by men.
These women want to look like the supermodels that portray perfection in an effort to be more confident but what they don’t realize is that these perfect women are to dissatisfied with themselves. This is one of the things from Ussher that this video touches on. He says that he watched videos of women whom were perfect, dumbing themselves down with severe comments of insecurity while he watched in amazement. Its interesting that this is so noticeable that an ordinary male observer feels compelled to reach out to people through a You Tube video. This is quite a problem in our country, I wish there was a way to reach out to those impressionable young girls and tell them its ok to be normal and that their worth is not in their appearance and above all to get them believe it.
