Women and Advertising Assignment

                Starting in the 1990’s and increasing in today’s day and age hip-hop music is often criticized for objectifying women as sex symbols and having a misogynist attitude.  “Video Vixen’s”, scantily clad models who appear in music videos often as a sex symbol, are a part of music videos in all genres of music.   However the use of females as a symbol for sex and power is in almost every hip hop video produced these days.  In a recent class discussion we talked about how women are objectified in advertising and used as a means to sell a product.  In the text I read that, “the advertising industry uses women’s bodies to sell shampoo, soft drinks, beer, tires, cars, fax machines, chain saws, and gun holsters as well as concepts of womanliness, manliness, and hereronormativity”(Kirk & Okazawa, p. 208).  This made me start to think about how this is done in the Hip-Hop industry with the lyrics and music videos as well.  I began looking at lyrics from one of my own favorite hip-hop artist, Lil’ Wayne.  A line from one of his songs stuck out to me in particular, “I don’t think you’re beautiful, I think you’re beyond it”.  I thought at first I could spin this in a positive light, but reading more of his well known lyrics outside of the context of the song, I couldn’t

Hey girl,

even find joy in the quote.  All of the other lyrics even some from the very same song were speaking about woman in a manner than was only speaking about them as a sex symbol.

                The picture I chose was from a recent ad campaign run by the clothing line Ed Hardy.  This photo was accompanied by one other photo featuring Lil’ Wayne’s mentor and “father” in the Hip-Hop business standing beside him while he sits on a throne.  There are two scantily clad females in the photo with them, just as this photo neither male is paying much attention to the beautiful woman that are hanging all over them.  I think advertisements such as this one along with the persona and lyrics of the male icon whose the center of the advertisement are portraying women as an object designed to be submissive too and sexually pleasing to men.  The male icon in this photo is dead center, he is sitting down without a shirt wearing only the clothing companies pants and hat, neither of which you can see.  The women are slender, physically fit, in small tank tops and bathing suits that clearly state the clothing line’s brand name.  They are the ones who are wearing and clearly representing the purpose of the ad, to sell this companies brand and clothing, yet there faces aren’t even shown……just their bodies.  This sends a message that these women are a symbol of beauty.  These woman who are in reality carrying the quintessential purpose of an advertisement, to showcase a brands name and logo, are placed of to the side with a man in the center and don’t even have their faces shown.  But ladies not to worry the main star of the ad “doesn’t think you’re beautiful”, he thinks “you’re beyond it”. 

Work Cited

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspective. Fifth ed. New York:    McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print

Photo:

http://highbridnation.com/2008/01/17/first-look-lil-wayne-babys-ed-hardy-ads/

I think your body’s beautiful but I don’t see much be.

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