Sexual Abuse in Advertising: where to draw the line.
Wednesday, November 18 by Katherine V
Tying into our class from the third week in the semester where we discussed women's representation in the media, I had a friend point out a video from Germany that was incredibly disturbing.
To start of, one of the things we discussed in class was the fact that advertising has become more and more about male dominance. To be more specific; the high-fashion industry. Bondage is shown as appealing, sexy, and somehow glamourous. To be fair, the D&G ad above, ended up being pulled after an uproar of controversy. However, ads such as this one for Duncan Quinn (right) are out there, for the public to see, where sexual abuse is portrated as something that is okay. We talked about the fact that women are quite often shown in subordinate poses, even in ads for children, where the boys are rough-housing with the girls. This isn't to say that the media should sugar coat everything. I believe it is important to help spread awareness of sexual abuse. But the issue is that, on one hand there are ads suggesting that is okay, and others aiming to reach out to victims. Mixed messages over a very serious topic is the problem here.
My thoughts are this: where is advertising going if these are the types of ads that are out there? What is going to be out there in 20-30 years?
If this is the only way to break through the clutter, then we have very, very big problems ahead of us.
