Essay

The portrayal of women in Coca Cola advertisements and analysing the representation of feminalities from different era's.

The male gaze is the idea of men being in power over women. Men stare at women in the streets, Women find this aggravating but in order not to anger the men they turn away and ignore them whereas women used to advertise on billboards give men the impression and the fantasy that they want the men to look at them. “Women, in the flesh, often feel embarrassed, irritated or downright angered by men's persistent gaze. But not wanting to risk male attention turning into male aggression, women avert their eyes and hurry on their way. Those women on the billboards, though; they look back. Those fantasy women stare off the walls with the look of urgent availability.” (Coward, R. 2000, p33) These women are often seen in Coca Cola advertising. “The idea of the women in the billboard is to flatter the men. “Women are depicted in a quite different way from men- not because the feminine is different from masculine- but because the ‘Ideal’ spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the women is designed to flatter him.” (Berger, 1972, p64)

Scopophilia, heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, is the objectification of women as sexual objects to be looked at by men. Scopophilia is sexist in that it represents 'The Gaze' as being male and powerful; men are also always the Heroes in Hollywood film and always drive the plot.

A recent advert for Coke zero shows Cheryl Cole promoting the soft drink. She is known as the nations sweetheart. Men want her, women want to be her, and therefore the promotion is for everyone. For men it is a fantasy, “Voyeurism is a way of taking sexual pleasure by looking at rather than being close to a particular object of desire, like a peeping Tom, and peeping Toms can always stay in control.” (Thomas, 2000, p34)

This is a fantasy and is best that way as actual contact will ruin it. This way the men can stay in control. “At the extreme Scopophilia can become fixated into a perversion, producing obsessive voyeurs and Peeping Toms whose only sexual satisfaction can come from watching, in an active, controlling sense an objectified other” (Mulvey, 1975, p162)

The psychoanalytic theory of Scopophilia would show Cheryl Cole as 'Passive' and the spectator, the men who have the male gaze, as the 'Active'. “The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact. They can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey, 1975)

In this particular advertisement Cheryl Cole is used to advertise the new Coke zero, made to be perceived as “Bloke Coke” She is therefore dressed as a man wearing a suit and hat. The men in the background of the image are not looking at her but looking away, this shows feminism. In Mulvey’s book 'Visual pleasure and narrative cinema' (1975), it is unclear whether she thinks that if men were visually sexualised women would be interested and be the ones doing the gazing.

Two more examples are the television adverts, one showing women acting like men whilst drinking Coke and another showing women working in an office and pretending the elevator is broken so a 'hunky' maintenance man comes to fix it. These adverts are extremely different to the adverts used in the 1910-1940's where Coca Cola targeted housewives, showing Coke as a refreshing drink whilst doing the shopping or having lunch. Using taglines such as 'Lunch refreshed' and 'Shop refreshed'. www.smashingshare.com The modern adverts show strong women who can do everything a man can do and how the roles of men and women have changed. Laura Mulvey talks about how men can not stand to be objectified, “According to the principles of the ruling ideology and the psychical structures that back it up, the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification” (Mulvey, 1975)

Last year Coca Cola brought out a T.V advert showing young, beautiful, well dressed women as airhead puppets dancing around on strings. This makes me think that this is Coca Cola's company opinion of woman, they are there to look good for men to look at. This is contradicting to the other television adverts which show men as the objects and they're for women to do the gazing.

Only after America entered World War 2, did Coca Cola start to become very patriotic. The company started off well but due to Dr Pemperton, the creator of Coca Cola, becoming ill, sales dropped. It wasn't until 1887 that the company became well known as it was advertised poorly. In 1906, William D'Arcy was hired to do the advertising, he made scenes of everyday life, scenes such as shopping and having lunch. In 1910, Coca Cola ran an advert of an attractive 'American' woman, that said, “Nothing is so suggestive of Coca Colas own pure deliciousness as the picture of a beautiful, sweet, wholesome, womanly woman.” www.xroads.virginia.edu (Jones and Ritzmann) This is where the use of women to promote and advertise the company began, and to provide an ideal vision of America.

The spectator, male ego, looks through the eyes of the actors in the film or in this case television adverts. The spectator is able to follow their gaze without feeling any guilt. If the actor from the film or advert speaks out to us then the suture is broken. The audience is then aware of their own gaze and therefore feeling the guilt.

In the 1950's and 60's Coca Cola moved on from using just print advertisement and started using photography showing men and women happily smiling as they drank their Coke. As the company became more well known the women used in the adverts started to become more sexualised, their dresses started to become shorter and some adverts even showed women wearing bathing suits. www.xroads.virginia.edu (Jones and Ritzmann)

In 1929 America saw the crash of the stock market, said to last ten years, which affected sales enormously. In 1941, The Saturday Evening Post showed a picture of a young woman wearing a bathing suit. As readers saw this as an ideal vision of America, the newspaper was saying that the country is in financial crisis but if you drink Coca Cola you can be as happy as this girl and not care.

In another advertisement from 1956, both a male and a female are used to promote the product, the male is gazing at the beautiful woman who is in a swimsuit passing her the Coca Cola bottle. Men can follow the Males gaze in the advertisement and not feel guilty, this type of gaze is Suture. If the male in the advertisement was looking at the audience this suture could be broken and the spectator would feel the guilt. It differs a lot from the Cheryl Cole advert firstly because it seems to be a painting and secondly because the image shows the male and female as a happy couple. Whereas in the more recent advert, the woman is shown as highly sexualised. The older ads seem to be more classy in the way the use to women to promote the product. It also seems that now days women are used less to promote the product, perhaps because it is such a massively known product and company, and also because its audience is so wide it doesn't need to just promote to men.

Extra-diegetic gaze is the direct address to the viewer of the television advert, the gaze of the actor in the advert looking out at us. This is often avoided in cinema but used a lot in advertising.

In an older Coca Cola advertisement, a woman wearing a revealing red dress is used to promote the product. The beautiful woman makes the product seem more alluring and desirable, in the advert she gazes upon us, therefore using the extra diegetic gaze, the most common gaze used especially in advertising.

Another example of an extra diegetic advert is the 1970 Coca Cola Raquel Welch vintage advertisement, advertising the 'New look' of coke. It is of a woman, dressed all in white with Coca Cola red accessories, sitting in a slightly enticing way, gazing at the viewer. It is supposed to be advertising Coca Colas fashion squares, showing the attractive woman wearing them gives the impression that if you but the fashion squares you will look like she does. I think therefore it is women doing the gazing in this instance.

Whilst scopophilia is the gaze of objectifying women as sexual objects narcissistic identification identifies with them. “The cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasurable looking but it also goes further, developing scopophilia in its narcissistic aspect” (Mulvey,1975) The sexual stimulation by sight of the woman is contradicted by the narcissistic identification with the image. Women become obsessed with the way they are seen and are therefore forced to be narcissistic. “Women's relation to these cultural ideals, and therefore to their own images, is more accurately described as a relation of narcissistic damage. Even women's relation to their own mirror image is retrospectively damaged by that critical glance of the cultural ideal.” (Thomas, 2000, p38)

The advertisement in which an attractive woman is holding a massive Coca Cola bottle could link to Freud's Castration theory. Castration meaning fear, the fear of the removal of his penis and would therefore be of the same level as a girl. In this theory, he believed that from a young age a boy having a penis is normal but a girl lacking in one is a defect. In the advert the woman's lack of a penis is a defect and not normal, and its as if the massive Coca Cola bottle is making up for this.

After looking at different forms of the Gaze I have seen how they evoke different structures of power. I have looked at Scopophilia, men having the power and objectifying woman as sexual objects, and how it is strongly used in advertising and has been for decades now.

I have also looked at Suture, the male ego identifying with the male actor in the adverts and relating to him without feeling any guilt. This has been evident in the advertisement with the male gazing upon a female in a swimsuit. These two forms of psychoanalysis, being quite different as the guilt is held in different people, therefore holding different structures of power. The male who is objectifying the woman has more power than the male who is identifying with him. The adverts such as the Cheryl Cole image shows narcissistic identification as the women looking at the advert can identify with her being that she is supposed to the one with the power. I have seen that the extra diegetic Gaze has been strongly used in Coca Cola advertising as the women in the adverts are often gazing at us. This theory along with Scopophilia works very well in advertising and has proven to increase sales for Coca Cola and make it as big as it is today. I have also seen how coca cola has changed over the years, even though they have used women to advertise, they are used now days in a different way.

Bibliography

Berger, J. (1972) Ways of seeing Harmondsworth, Penguin

Mulvey, L. (1975) Visual pleasures and other narrative cinema

Thomas, J. (2000) Reading images, NY, Palgrave McMillan

Betterton, R (ed.) (1987) Looking on: Images of femininity in the Visual Arts and Media. London, Pandora Press. (704.072)

Coward, R. (2000) 'The Look' in Thomas, J. ed. (2000) Reading images. Basingstoke, Palgrave, pp.33-39. (306.23)

Lutz, C. and Collins, J. (1993) 'The photograph as a Intersection of Gazes: The example of National Geographic' in Taylor, L. (1994) Visualizing Theory: Selected Essays from V.A.R 1990-1994. New York, Routledge, pp.363-384. (306.23)

Sturken, M. and Cartright, L. (2^nd Edition, 2009) Practices of looking: an introduction to visual culture. Oxford, Oxford University Press. (306.23)

Chaudhuri, S. (2006) Feminist Film Theorists. Oxon, Routledge

Williamson, J. (2002) Decoding Advertisements, London, New York, Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd.

Wolf, N. (1991) The Beauty Myth, London. Chatton and Windus.

Websites

www.smashingshare.com/2010/11/25/the-history-of-coca-cola-print-advertising

(13/2/11)

Jones,E and Ritzmann, F (n.d) Cocoa Cola at Home [online] Available at

[accessed 13 february 2011]

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze01/.html

(13/2/11)

Task 5

Portfolio Task 5- Sustainability & Capitalism

Read the text- Balser, E (2008) 'Capital Accumulation, Sustainability & Hamilton Ontario'. We have copies in the CTS office, 115.


Write a 500 word critical summary of the text which explicitly adresses the following questions

1. How is sustainability defined in the text?
2. What are the main characteristics or tendencies of Capitalism
3. Define a 'crisis of Capitalism'. Offer an example.
4. What solutions have been offered to the sustainability question? Are these successful or realistic? - If not why are they flawed?
5. Is the concept of sustainability compatible with Capitalism?

Sustainability, described by Donella Meadows is 'Often defined as inter and intra generational equity in the social, environmental, economic, moral and political spheres of society' The text defines sustainability as ideological. 'Sustainability is a communal concept', it needs everyone to buy into it and to be thinking about it. Although in the text is also says that the responsibilty is often being left to the individual and technology. 'The attempt to engage in sustainable lifestyles and make environmentally conscious decisions has largely fallen to the individual and through technology' Capitalism interferes with attaining sustainability, the thirst for money and profit within a market. It is constantly looking for new things to commodify. 'Capitalism is constantly expanding' causing crisis. Capitalist views run along side sustainabilty potentially harming communities. An example of this is the BIOX plant being built on a poor communities green space in the North End of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Hamilton has one of the highest incidents of low income per household. 'The environment crisis is no different, it exists at a threshold in which constant new technologies, policies or ideas push it past these limitations, and deferring the apocalypse for yet another day'. A new market has been create to capitalize on, the green market is just another market. Capitalism therefore thrives from making a profit from this. The reason the plant was set up in Hamilton was because it was a cheap place to be and the community themselves were too poor to reject the idea. It was built on the only green space there but the tremors from the plant damaged peoples home. There were violations of residents health and safety regulations due to sulphuric acid and flammable chemicals. These were not the only problems, there was constant noise, light and air pollution. These problems were not thought to be a sacrifice therefore the whole point in the plant being sustainable contradicts itself and becomes capitalist 'Instead of ending this cycle, it has only perpetuated it'.

The idea of using bio- diesel as a sustainability solution is because it is a 'alternative 'clean' fuel that is becoming an increasing popular alternative to regular diesel fuel and because the use of recycling helps to reduce waste production.' It is the conversion of animal and vegetable fat into usable fuel. This idea started off a small business is now a very large business which becomes capitalist itself. 'What began as a small time, agricultural project, which hoped to maximize the efficiency of agricultural practices, has become a huge environmental business'

For bio diesel to be effective it has to be used by a lot of people therefore more plants had to be built. Evidently, it turns out the largest producers of bio diesel is in the North End Hamilton, BIOX. 'While the BIOX plant represents the ecological integrity and economical prosperity that is deemed so important for sustainability, it is certainly at the sacrifice of social equality'

Capitalism is now introduced again, so it seems it is a never ending cycle therefore the concept of sustainability is not compatible with capitalism. 'The situation in the North End is not, and never was, the intention of promoting sustainable practices and technologies. Rather, it became a tangential and necessary victim to ensure that bio-diesel production was efficient and the product was affordable.  

Task 6

Portfolio Task 6- Theory Into Practice

Look at the CTS blog that Garry Barker has been writing to complement the lecture programme this year. Write a short response to one of the posts on the blog. Use the ideas that Garry is discussing to mount a short critical evaluation of one piece of Graphic design that you have produced on Level 5.


Reflections on the first lecture, Surveillance and Foucault

One of the ideas in which Gary has discussed on his blog is, reflections on the first lecture, surveillance and Foucault. The idea that all design is centered on communication and that it helps in the formation of social and cultural identities. 'If you look at how graphic design helps in the formation of social and cultural identities, it is reasonable to suggest that class, racial, ethnic, age and gender groups etc. are often represented by stereotypes within the graphic design industry.

I am going to look at a piece of work I have designed which I had the chance to choose my target audience. The audience I chose was children aged 5-10. This piece of work was subtly controlled by the way we are stereotyped as the colours, fonts and images I used were very stereotypical for small children. I used bright yellow, blue and green, simple images of animals and bold clear fonts that were very large and also simple. I also produced things I thought would be fun for children such as bookmarks and  stickers, again very stereotypical. 'All representations are by their very nature 'less than' reality and therefore involve a selection or choice' I chose my target audience and therefore chose to stereotype my decisions within design. 'This choice is going to be one made by the person constructing the representation and therefore will reflect prejudices held on the part of the image maker'

This happens basically all the time in graphic design whether a designer has been given the target audience or has to chose the audience themselves, and therefore more often than not the design decisions made will be very stereotypical. 

Gary talks about how Salen suggests design fits into two categories of 'Standard and non-standard'

'Salen (2001) suggests that all visual form supports structures of cultural standardisation, marking distinctions between what he calls 'Standard and non- standard' participants' and also 'How it can become an 'agent of standardisation' but i do not necesarrily think that this piece of design fits into these categories however it does suggest that is it represented by an age group stereotype.

Task 4

Use Shannon & Weaver's model of the communication process to write a 300-400 word analysis of a work of Graphic Design. Comment on the ways in which the piece of Graphic Design attempts to communicate to a specific audience, using techniques of redundancy, entropy or noise.

The piece of work I am going to look at is a piece of letterpress print by Richard Ardagh called POP! goes the weasel. When applying 'Communication theory' and analysing this piece of work I found that Information (the source), the transmitter, channel, receiver and the destination became apparent. Using Shannon and Weaver's model of communication process I can apply this structure to this piece of print design. The information stage at the beginning would be the Designer followed by the transmitter. This is the form in which the design, in this case the letterpress print design, has taken place. The transmitter would therefore be letterpress print. Noise can occur if for example a print, unintentionally goes wrong, something is misspelled, colours do not come out how they were intended or composition of the print is incorrect, amongst other things. The next stage is the channel, the form in which the work is produced, this would be the letterpress. The content of the print is and english nursery rhyme which can be traced back the mid-19th-century. This message is clear as is the audience therefore I do not think entropy occurs. It is intended to be clear and legible therefore there is no noise inflicted on itself which means redundancy occurs instead, no resistance on the design with a neutral form of communication and little information. After the channel comes the receiver, the people who are viewing the designs. This piece of design, as well as other prints by Richard Ardagh, have recently been on show in the 'Reverting to type' exhibition, in London, where the receivers can go to view the work. As there is little noise from the channel to the receiver, the message of the design can be accurately interpreted. Therefore the destination has been reached correctly. 

Essay Title
The portrayal of women in Coca Cola print advertisements and the comparison between a 1930's ad and a 2008.


Introduction


-The Gaze itself and how it impacts advertising
- How advertising uses the 'male gaze' to produce effective ads.


References
John Berger 'Ways of seeing'
R. Coward 'The Look' Article
L. Mulvey "Visual pleasures and narrative cinema'

Essay proposal

- Woman in the media- The Gaze
- How women are portrayed in advertisement.
- I want to look at different eras, for example comparing posters from the 1930s, art deco, art nouveau style, till now and the relationship between the two.
- How they have changed but the idea of women that are subject to the male gaze.

Methodological approach- 'Freudian theories of psychoanalysis'
Scopophilia- the pleasures of looking at others, bodies as objects

Laura Mulvey- Woman in film exist as 'Sexual' objects to be looked at.
'Visual and other pleasures'

Using women to advertise drinking.

Women in coca cola ads. This one is from the 1930.

2007

Popular culture

CTS session