STUCK IN TIME

Tiarah Golladay-Murry

Modern advertisements have been striving to be more inclusive and less sexualized, but they can be lost in their old ways.

For the past few years, television shows, movies, and media in general has comes to terms with needing more representation. Twitter has been on the rise as a means to call out certain directors and influencers who do not fully or accurately represent certain groups or topics. This can occur if a certain project is male dominated or, for example, when Princess Tiana was white-washed in the movie Wreck it Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet.

No matter the severity, people are now speaking up for representation, holding nothing back. However, some brands have had trouble detangling themselves from their old-fashioned advertisements.  A brand that comes to mind is J’adore. J’adore is known to have small women typically sexualized in promotion for their perfume and general branding. Not to say that their way isn’t effective in selling their product, but in this day in age companies are moving towards showing a wider variety of body sizes win their commercials and moving away from the idea that sex sells. Nonetheless, this raises a bigger issue of sexual objectification in the media, especially in advertising. There has been a long-standing idea that women as well as men must strip bare in order to sell a product.

If individuals on all platforms start speaking up against misrepresentation and sexualization, then it will increase the possibility of seeing more change and variety in the world of media. It is up to the audiences to challenge these advertisers or businesses and have them held accountable for what they put out to the public eye.

(Video clip)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NXbiGTmbrc

Even though the advertisement shows beautiful women, one must ask themselves what type of message is the brand J’adore, or other brands, sending?