In a world with advertisements everywhere, it is important to draw attention to your product. To do this, some companies use a person’s physical appearance to catch your eye.
We have grown beyond using sexual content in advertisements, but we are still very focused on physical appearance. In every advertisement you see online, there is always just some swimsuit model trying to convince you to buy their product.
In today’s media, you only see people that would be considered attractive. One example is a Kia ad where a supermodel shows up in her Kia car and makes a joke about soccer being called football to an American football team. The people in these ads are almost always tan, skinny and perfect in every other way trying to sell you their products.
I hate to say it, but we only listen to the people who are attractive. The only time you see someone in the media who is less than perfect is when they are trying to scare you away from something.
Advertisers rely on attractiveness because it draws attention. It makes the product seem bold. It makes people want to buy their product because the pretty person said so. It makes the viewer think if the user of that product looks like that and they are using the product, then it must be good.
It isn’t just in advertisements, but also in movies. The actors’ appearances alone separate them from the rest of us. The actors are always beautiful with radiant makeup and flamboyant outfits. They live these extravagant lives and they portray so much confidence that it is easy to forget they are regular people with doubts and struggles.
This is problematic because it creates issues with body image. When people compare themselves to the models on the screen they can get discouraged. Seeing these people with seemingly no flaws gracefully move across the screen can make people rethink their self-esteem.
The standards that we are held to are unrealistic. People have different body types and different needs to be healthy. It isn’t healthy to compare yourself to someone whose body doesn’t work the same.
It also includes video editing. I remember one of my high school teachers showing the class a video of a model for the Dove company. The video showed a time-lapse of the model’s hair being done and the whole makeup process, which must have taken hours.
Then the photos of the model go through the editing process where drastic changes are made to her appearance. They changed how long her neck was, made her lips and eyes bigger, and changed the color and shape of her hair. The video ends with a message to not compare yourself to others online because what you are comparing yourself to might not even be real.
While the use of sexual content in advertisements has decreased, it’s still focused on physical appearance. It is seen everywhere in today’s media and is hard to not notice the prominent use of people with “perfect” physical traits to advertise mundane objects. Relying on attractive people to promote products has created oppressive beauty standards that are not realistic.
