Food for Thought: Heteronormativity in Advertising

In the process of working through my major assignments for the semester and really struggling to get anything done.  I'm writing a paper about heteronormativity in advertising, though, so I figured I'd share some of my pre-research thoughts here.

Recently, I've been very interested in the idea of the commodification of experience, more specifically of love and relationships.  Hence where this idea of heteronormativity comes into play.  I guess I should clarify what heteronormativity means: the idea that heterosexual relationships and family norms are the way to be.  This ideology is evident almost everywhere.  There's this norm of heterosexuality that's imprinted in almost everything, and it's kind of annoying.

My original research was on the 1967 Polaroid Swinger ads.  I did a semiotic analysis of the imagery based on the Free Love Movement in that period.

 

I noticed that in these ads there is a ton of sexual tension between the sexes.  You can see how there are many instances in both ads where there is touching and provocative gazes between the male and female individuals depicted.  To me, that's a definite, obvious example of heteronormativity in advertising.

I used this idea as the starting point for my research topic, though I've yet to do research about heteronormativity and the male gaze.  I've found a number of ads that play on this idea that women need to attract men (and vice versa) through consumer habits created by advertising.  The first ad I'll bring attention to is a 1960 DeBeers diamond ad (which I discussed in my last post).

"Your happiness. Your love. A diamond is forever."

This is an ad targeted towards women, in my opinion, who would want an engagement diamond.  Central is a picture of a beautiful woman who isn't even wearing a diamond.  She is a depiction of elegance, of what women would love to be or be like.  I see this as marketing through women for the consumption habits of men: women want to be elegant and pampered like this woman, they make the claim to the men they're in relationships, the men purchase the DeBeers diamond in order to fulfil the women's fantasy created by such advertising.  There is an ideology created around ideas of love and that a true engagement cannot be true without the presence of a diamond.  It's become this heteronormative way of life that consumers tend not to question.  Even if these advertisements, laden with meaning surrounding the commodification of love and relationships, are not constantly seen, they exist and they have changed the way we consume.

The next ad I found compelling for the purpose of this research is a 1954 Palmolive ad.

Other than the implication Palmolive soap ads have through the years of creating a younger looking female who will attract romance into her life, here it's more the imagery than the text that promotes heteronormativity.  First, the central image of the couple is an obvious trigger of heteronormativity: a happy, healthy, heterosexual couple coming together.  The male gaze also exists here, but I'm having a hard time connecting that with my research.  Another interesting image in this ad that could be seen as heteronormative promotion is that of the baby on the right hand side.  Though the image of the baby is primarily seen as promotion to use the Palmolive soap on baby skin, I see it as an obvious implication of heterosexual families involving children.

There are a few more ads that I've been looking at to complement my research, but I think before I can continue with it, I need to do some academic reading to be able to rationally tie things together.

Here's to hoping I do this assignment properly, unlike the last one.

How strategic advertising reinvented perceptions of love

Something that came up in class this morning that was quite interesting to me was the idea of how the diamond industry created itself, through the use of advertising, as a globally accepted symbol of love.

My prof explained how before the diamond, engagement rings were simple bands with a single pearl, and how DeBeers (a diamond retailer) was not pleased.  They wanted to make diamonds the norm (marketing their product for profit) so they made a deal with Hollywood where films would portray women with diamond engagement rings to encourage consumers to change their ideal of what an engagement ring should be.  She also explained how it became a norm to spend 2 months worth of salary to really show the person you love how much you love them based on the amount of money you were willing to spend.  They started marketing ideas like "diamonds are forever" and it started to catch on, spanning from Western culture and across the globe.

If you know me, you'll know how I feel about love.  As cynical as I may be towards relationships sometimes, you'll know I truly believe that everyone deserves to know/feel loved and supported at all times, in all situations.  I believe that love is not something from which we should be deprived, and that just by telling someone you love them or showing them how much you care simply by being there for them in good times and in bad goes a long way.  Though it's interesting to see how companies use advertising to show us that we can show how much we love each other by acting it out, but great loves and expensive diamonds make that love better, more real, stronger.  Companies use advertising to show us a different (more expensive) way to look at the idea of love we all know and share in some way or another.  It's strange isn't it?  To look at advertising as driving force that doesn't manipulate us to want certain things or others but as discourse that is used to monetize abstractions.  

Basically I'm super interested in the fact that by overtly (and covertly) displaying images of diamond engagement rings as opposed to pearl ones created a substantial shift in the way we perceive, and potentially practice, displays of love.

Why start another new blog?

I decided to create this blog in order to share my thoughts and interests a little more formally, in writing form.  Though it's not unusual for me to Tweet or Tumbl about the things that are going on in my life, I want to get a little more professional.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I'm going to move forward when I graduate next year and having somewhere to share more insightful, even academic, thoughts was the solution I came up with to help me.  I'm going to address topics that interest me (obviously), maybe share excerpts from my own academic papers.  I want to use this as a tool to kind of group my interests and share the things that fascinate me intellectually (rather than the more than TMI tweets and tumblr posts most people are used to).

I'm going to try and write a post at least once a week, if not more, but we'll see how things go.  

Here's to getting back into writing.