Power to the Grrrrls

The past week we have been discussing female super heroes. Does this give power to women or does it take away from women? We have been observing these questions in the show Charlie's Angels.

Here are women who are given power because they fight and solve crimes that men cannot figure out. Usually their culprit tends to be a man which lends power to these women because they have bested a male. What could this mean for women? This empowerment meant many changes for females everywhere.

Unfortunately in order to make this show popular these women also needed to be "saved" and "controlled" by a man. Charlie is seen as a highly desirable and a very sexual "voice" that "saved" these girls from boredom. They also seem to need the help of at least one male in every episode in order to solve the problem at hand. These women are also made to seem very pretty and desirable. Their hair is always down and flowing, smiles are perfect, and their makeup and clothes are impeccable. We also discovered that Farrah Fawcet had it written in her contract that she was not supposed to wear a bra for the whole season.

Overall I think that Charlie's Angels was an attempted step toward women becoming more independent, but in trying to make the show popular the writers fell back into making women subordinate once more.

They're always watching....

Have you ever noticed that the advertisements on the side bar of your computer suspiciously always have to do with something you're interested in? Recently I saw an ad on my side bar about running shoes... I bought my running shoes in a store...not online. So how do people know what I'm into and what should be put up? Anything and everything you do can be tracked or traced on the internet. For example, I signed up for a race online so the common sense ad to show would be one involving running gear. Advertisers look at the sites you visit and the things you buy online in order to create a side bar just for you! So you see advertisers really are out to get you...

 

How can you protect yourself from the insidiousness of advertising companies? Erase cookies on your web browser and be sure to block or hide any ads or pop-ups on your computer that are distracting. Oddly enough I think that what advertisers have done is very smart! What better way to get you to buy things than an advertisement of item(s) you might buy on the web pages you are browsing. So a word of caution...be careful about what you look at and know that they're always watching...

That was how many ads Americans see today!?

The Kids Aren't Alright

Today we discussed media for children. We read an article that described a major shift in the way marketers were allowed to sell to kids. Instead of selling to parents, advertising that their product was good/healthy for children, advertisers have started marketing directly to children so that they in turn will beg their parents for the item the companies are selling.

Companies have now not only targeted kids in general they have started targeting specific age groups. Using the age compression method advertisers have started creating "older young children". They use older children to advertise products so that younger children will want to be "cool" like the big kids and buy the product. For example, Nerf Guns are generally sold to younger kids, but older children are in the commercial.

Interestingly though ads that target boys generally have a much older male in the commercial. Ads that target girls don't normally have girls much older than the age group they were intended for.

These commercials not only target children they teach them that this is what they want. The commercials show them that should want to play with these things in order to fit in. For example, you will never see a boy in a commercial for dolls or a girl in a commercial for guns. Even the colors are gender specific. Boys have blue, grey, and orange in their commercial while the girls are all purple, pinks, and yellow. I think the laws that protected children from a multitude of images in the media should be replaced.