Kim Kardashian Carl's Jr Commercial 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J11qUjHiGhs
Kim Kardashian Carls Jr Commercial 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx-X2Wu_XbI
Hardee's Padma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvz63nkDcMM
Nowadays, the concept of “male gaze” is commonly used in many commercials intentionally to attract more customers, especially commercials in food industry. In many of these commercials, women always are depicted more delicious and more alluring than the food itself to make the product more appealing to audiences. It is a very common strategy that used by many food companies. It is also understandable why “male gaze” is very popular in food or restaurants commercials. There is one saying “love me, love my dog”. In the case of food advertisements, “me” is the delicious female figures presented in the show, and “my dog” is the food she is eating. When we watch these advertisements, we all intend to put ourselves in men’s perspectives and enjoy the flirting movements of actress shown in the commercials. When we enjoy seeing the actress, we then naturally feel that we also enjoy the food that she is eating. There are two examples of food advertisements that both show great examples of how the “male gaze” serves the advertisement in a good way and successfully makes the food look more tasty and attractive.
In the Carl’s Jr commercial, the scenery that first appears to us is a woman, with a sexy long pajama, walking gracefully to her bed. And on her bed, there is a bowl of the “cranberry apple walnut chicken salad”. It is very interesting to me because the woman is not eating this salad either on her kitchen table or in a restaurant, instead she is eating it on her bed and lying down in a curly body shape. The company seems to want to send us the message that the salad is as tasty as her, or jump to the bed, enjoy the salad and her together. The commercial ends by a man’s voice, saying “who said salad can’t be hot?”
I also found another version of the same commercial. The sexy woman is not involved any more, instead it shows a young a boy doing exactly the same thing that was depicted in the other woman-version commercial. Without the presence of the woman, the salad just seems really normal and not hot at all. That is how “male gaze” works in the commercial. Women always are depicted sexy, tasty and waiting to be taken in commercials.
There is another burger advertisement shown in the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvz63nkDcMM
When I look at this advertisement, I was surprised by how similar this commercial is compare to the Carl’s Jr commercial, even though one is selling burger, the other is selling salad. Two companies use the same tactic which is presenting a extremely beautiful female figure. There are even many similar captured scenes in both two commercials. For example, there are both close scenes of actresses’ sexy lips while they are eating. And while they are eating, there are both salad sauces or burger sauces been dropped off from their mouths, went pass through their chests or landed near their butts.
The way of how both advertisements present their products have rarely relationship with products themselves. Instead, no matter whether it is a bowl of chicken salad or a burger the company wants to sell, a sexy female figure can make the food looks more delicious because of the power of “male gaze”. In most of these commercials, women are always presented as vulnerable objects, just like the salad/burger being advertised. The way they are shown in commercials are always being alluring to men and trying to evoke men’s desires toward them and therefore toward the product along with them.
The Author is able to bring in my attention by explaining how the "Male Gaze" has been brought into commercials and narrows down the scope to commercials about food. The blog flows from one point to another with an analysis of the salad commercial, comparison with a different make of the same commercial, and a third commercial that shows this was not a one time deal.
ReplyDeleteThe paragraphs are thought out and well organized. The point flows from example to examples that support one another.
The language is not too formal for this blog but I did notice a couple of mistakes in the blog. One I remember is an additional "a" in the paragraph describing the salad commercial with the boy.
The blog did have links to the commercials. The top links might want to be moved to the area where they are described within the blog. Pictures might also help if you are able to find some food commercial pictures to put in the blog. I also have that problem of lack of pictures and I believe we could both benefit from their addition.
Commercials are your popular culture item that you are analyzing, and because everyone has seen and knows of the commercials that are at there, your post is intriguing. How you focused specifically on food commercials was a unique idea because one would never think that the "male gaze" would exist in food advertisements as well!
ReplyDeleteYour main argument is that commercials try to sell the food they are advertising by selling the women in the commercials as well. It is an effective technique but it needs to be replaced by one that doesn't objectify women. Your examples support your argument really well, and I love when you compared the commercial with Kim Kardashian to the one with the boy.
Each of your 4 paragraphs supports your main idea and furthers it. You stayed on topic the whole time. You used perfect language for your audience because it is easy to read; however, it still sounds very educated which makes you sound very credible.
I think your post would be more visually appealing if you had some images. You could take a screen shot from one of your commercials and post that picture just to draw people's attention.