The media today has taken advertising to the extreme in numerous ways. They portray unrealistic ads to the public through television commercials, magazine ads, and newspaper ads. To the marketing world, the more eye-grabbing the advertisement, the more sales they will reach. Unfortunately, the media has taken the approach of abusing, distorting, and degrading women’s bodies to sell their products because they feel that sex sells. They believe if they have a beautiful trim woman selling their product they will truly benefit from it. Many products that have more of an interest to a male audience use a female figure to grab their attention. As the entertaining world becomes more relaxed with their rules, the advertisements seem to become more and more scandalous.
On television today there are many advertisements that use a woman as the main advertiser. The restaurant Hardee’s is a prime example of misusing women to sell a product, which in this case is a hamburger. Paris Hilton misrepresents the female figure in this commercial in a very disturbing way. In this commercial she is wearing an extremely revealing bathing suit while washing a car in a very seductive fashion. The way she is eating the hamburger and the way she is washing the car is also extremely sexy as well. She has an extremely thin-framed body that is not the norm for the majority of the women in the world. She does not represent a natural, untouched body because she has had various plastic surgery procedures as well as numerous hair treatments. The truth of the matter is that many women do not have the means to get hair treatments frequently for pleasure and go under plastic surgery. The average woman also is not positioned in an industry that focuses on outside appearance daily as much as Paris Hilton’s does. Unfortunately today, the media focuses on unrealistic female body images which in turn makes women out in the real world feel extremely vulnerable and insecure: “Jean Kilbourne describes the ‘toxic cultural environment’ surrounding U.S. girls and shows how advertising images can severely undermine girls’ self confidence and sense of agency which can lead to serious physical and emotional health problems” (Kirk, Gwyn, pg. 208). I am comfortable with my body and over all appearance; however, I would not compare myself to her. I believe I relate to the women in the advertisements that are not meant to please or attract the opposite sex.
Paris Hilton’s sexual behavior in the skimpy outfit is definitely a negative representation of all women. Her sexual behavior is a negative representation that suggests women should be sex objects for men’s pleasures: “Dominant U.S. culture often reduces women to bodies, valuing us only as sex objects” (Kirk, pg. 208). Her body’s action when washing the car degrades women. Her behavior in this commercial is definitely one that I would never consider displaying under any circumstances.
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