Reading Response: Chapter 5

Chapter 5 contains so many interesting and controversial topics... It was fantastic! The first part I want to discuss is the issue of the female body in advertising. The chapter discusses the way photographs for advertising usual conform to the status quo in the hope of appearing neutral. However, in reality they are politically charged because of their perpetuation of dominant ideas. In fashion images, the women are constructed to perpetuate the typical gender roles. The author points out that just by focusing on hands, the viewer can see a clear gender distinction. The decorative feminine hand contrasts to the active male hand. The commodification of women is particularly evident in the cutting up of the female form in adverts to ease with the objectification of the female body. The woman is transformed into a sex object in the service of selling a product. The important point here is their influence on young women. I have known two girls with anorexia and I feel the struggles they experienced were greatly enhanced by the proliferation of images depicting the perfect body. I recently watching an extremely shocking documentary on PBS called Girl Model. It begins with hundreds of 13 year old girls wearing nothing but a bikini spoken about as if they were objects rather than people. One man says directly to a girl that her hips are too big and she needs to go on a diet... At 13 years old... and this girl was very skinny. These images on the one hand are ideals which women aspire to become and yet the reality behind the women (or girls) depicted is disturbing.  I really appreciated the authors emphasis on this continuing fight for equality because I too hear that we are in a post-feminist age by many students.

The other particularly shocking part of the chapter was the discussion of Toscani's photographs for Benetton. These shock tactics seem inhumane. There is absolutely no connection to the shocking documentary photographs and the clothes. There doesn't even seem to be a social message. Toscani did not ask the viewer to consider the issues the photographs might address. Rather, their purpose is simple to peak the viewers curiosity, to make you look. It is shock for the sake of getting attention. How could the company justify using a man who died of aids as a commodity to sell a product? I am amazed and saddened that these images did not lead to a loss of sales. I thought I would add a picture seeing as there was not one in the book. I hope I am not encouraging shock tactic advertising by doing so!

As photographers interested in exploring the denotative  deeper meanings and content, how do you respond to stock images which are basically stripped of meaning so that they can be re-purposed?