Pick a magazine advertisement you'd love to tear apart. (Note: do not critique the cover of a magazine. Instead, critique an advertisement found inside a magazine.)
Write a 600-650 words critique in which you explain how the advertisement's glorification of traditional gender roles keeps us in a dream state.
Must use some of the following questions as a guide: What ways of life does this advertisement make us want to envy and to possess? Is the advertisement glorifying a particular gender role or class position? According to the ad, what aspects of ourselves need improvement? How does the advertisement make a social problem (i.e. a problem caused by social inequality) out to be personal problem (i.e. a problem caused by our own inadequacies)? Does the ad include a celebrity, and if so, what qualities does the celebrity bring to the ad? What kind of fantasies does the ad sell and why does it sell them? How has the ad's aesthetics (its presentation as a work of art) lure us into wanting to buy the product? What kind of emotions does the ad stir inside of us?
Module 1 Advertising and Consumption
- Historical Development of Consumer Culture
- Stages of Development in Advertising
- Celebrity as Commodity
- Culture Jamming
Module 2 Gender and the Culture of Beauty
- Gender and the Culture of Beauty
- Functionalist Perspective on Gender
- Conflict Perspective on Gender
- The Male Gaze
- A Beauty Myth
- The Bechdel Test
Module 3 Sexuality
- Masculinity / Femininity
- Sexual Identity
- LGBTTTIQ
- Popular Culture and Gay or Lesbian Visibility
- Coming Out
These topics above are especially relevant for this essay.
Uploaded document should include either an image of the original ad or a URL linking to it.