Sexualization of Women in the Media

There is perhaps no other topic in the media today that is drawing more criticism than the disgusting, degrading sexualization of women in every aspect of the media. Turn on the television or open up a magazine and you are bombarded with images of women portrayed as nothing but sexual objects. Whether it is chasing a man through the jungle because of the scent of his cologne, laying provocatively as pieces of furniture.

This ongoing trend has become so prevalent that many feminists have begun to refer to this as the “sexploitation” of women in the media. A recent study published by USA Today found that advertising and media images that indirectly tell young girls to focus on their looks and sexuality found the shocking news that it is detrimental to their emotional and physical well-being. Out of all the issues in the media today this is one of the most important, yet most often overlooked issue. Dozens upon dozens of organizations have materialized in response to this ongoing issue such as the Girls, Women, and Media Project, Our Bodies Ourselves, Women, Action and the Media, Women in Media and News, This analysis will focus in-depth on specific examples of how women are objectified by looking at all types of mass media such as television, film, and, most importantly, advertising. This is an issue that is almost everywhere we look, and no single form of media has yet to eliminate its sexualization and sexploitation of women. The Feminist Movement occurred in the 1960s and it is now 2010. The media clearly needs to keep up with the times.

The first, and probably the most notorious aspect of the media that goes above and beyond merely sexualizing and is the full inspiration behind the sexploitation, is the advertising industry. In fact, you would be hard-pressed nowadays to turn on the TV, or flip through the pages of a magazine and not see at least half a doze advertising campaign that doesn’t depict some pouty-lipped vixen advertising some average, everyday product complete with some thinly veiled sexual innuendo aimed at convincing the viewer to purchase the product. These products could be anything from deodorant, a sandwich, gum, or even beer—hardly the types of products that would, on their own, inspire any sense of sexual desire. Yet because of the “sex sells” policy that has become the way of life in our society, the advertising industry has followed the trend and catered to man’s age-old deepest desire: women.

Consider the Axe Body Spray advertising campaign. According to their commercials, Axe Body Spray is a literal chick magnet. In the world of Axe, women come running from miles around to slobber, clawing, or any other number of disgusting animalistic tendencies. The women in these commercial are always (of course) size double zero, tall, and obscenely gorgeous, while the men in these commercials are always the stereotypical less-than-attractive and dorky and rarely get any sort of attention from the opposite sex. Yet once they spray themselves with Axe, beautiful women literally cannot keep their hands off of them.

The Axe advertisements have even drawn attention from the news media. In a 2007 article by The Seattle Times, a reporter tries to figure exactly what it is that makes the Axe ads such a successful campaign. After all, Axe reported $71 million in sales in 2006 alone, while their biggest competitor, Tag, reported only $50 million. The article goes on to state that Axe is living proof that “sex sells”, yet any educated individual in the US today can see that the fine line between “sex sells” and “sexism sells” is becoming more and more blurred with each new Axe ad airing on public TV.

The most recent ad campaign for Axe Dark Temptation is particularly disgusting in portraying women as solely being driven by their animalistic desire for sex. In these ads, the typical average male sprays on the deodorant and is transformed into a human being made entirely out of chocolate. Throughout the commercial, we see the same chocolate man being hounded by dozens upon dozens of unrealistically beautiful women who just cannot keep their hands off of this chocolate stud and they become so desperate to have him, the even rip off his chocolate limbs as he walks down the street. Needless to say, this is not the most flattering light that any human being, regardless of gender, could possibly be portrayed in.

Another example of the overwhelming themes of male chauvinism present in the advertising industry today come from none other than the notorious beer industry. Take, for example, the infamous Miller Lite catfight commercial in which two women argue over what makes the beer so good. The two women become so passionate about their sides of the argument that they tear each other’s clothes off while rolling around in a fountain then in a catch basin full of wet cement. Or, what is considered perhaps the most chauvinistic commercial ever to air on US Television is the following commercial made by Guinness:

The readers can view the clip and judge for themselves the dignified light in which women are shown in this fine piece of work. Yet men are portrayed in the classic way to show that beer=manliness. Beer has been advertised since the beginning of the advertising industry itself as a real man’s drink, and therefore beer commercials cater to men’s archetypal visions of masculinity and beautiful women.

With the latest trend of reality TV, also came the trend of some of the most downright trashiest shows ever to air on television. Take for example MTV’s The Real World, or (of course) Jersey Shore. Each of these shows has the same classic plot that has become the regular droll among reality TV shows catering to adults: take a group of people that have nothing in common (except for the fact that they all look like they could have stepped directly out of a Maxim magazine), shove them in some gorgeous house that probably costs more than anyone reading this will ever see in their lifetime, and let the sparks fly. Of course there are constant hookups, back stabbings, and obscene amounts of alcohol thrown in just for added affect, which naturally can only lead to one thing: sex, and lots of it at that. Throughout the entire season of both of shows the recurring pattern is getting drunk beyond the ability to think properly, flashing whoever will pay attention, and sleeping with whatever guy seems the best looking at the moment.

On Jersey Shore, there is one particular character that exemplifies all that is wrong with the world today: Mike “The Situation”. It is difficult to see how this 28 year old is able to leave any spare time for sleeping with so many young women when he is so in love with himself. In every episode, we see the same trend of going to the club Karma every night, getting completely wasted, and picking up two questionably young women: one for “The Situation” and one for his partner-in-crime, Pauly D. Ignoring the fact that their names alone imply the main characters in some horrendous, B list mafia movie, these men represent the attitude against women that the media has been spreading around since the start of the reality TV revolution. There is one particular episode in which “The Situation” singles out his ladies for the night, ends up leaving them behind for two girls he likes better, then sorely discovers these two are not the loose, party-type that he was expecting. Luckily, he is rescued by the fact that the two girls he left behind at the club have showed up at the house and demand to be let in. “The Situation” chooses his girl (the beautiful, half-gone one), while Pauly D takes one for the team and is stuck with the less-attractive girl. Throughout the rest of the episode, the less-than attractive friend is referred to as the “grenade”. He even goes so far at the end of the season to express his disgust at the overweight females he saw all over the Jersey Shore and even refers to them as “zoo creatures”.

It goes without saying that it is downright disgusting how, one cable’s most talked about and most controversial TV show such overt themes of female beauty distortion and sexualization. Referring to overweight women as “zoo creatures” degrades them, based on the strictly defined American ideals of beauty, to nothing but mere animals. As if women were not under enough pressure from the media regarding their appearance already, a show like Jersey Shore comes out to further degrade women past their intelligence, personality, or any other abstract parts of a person down to whether they meet the criteria to fulfill the term “beautiful” or not.

The film industry is another branch of the media notorious for sexualizing women and giving a smorgasbord of female characters based on their superhuman beauty, statuesque body, and kinetic sexual energy. Besides the stereotypes of the cutthroat career woman, the doe-eyed ingénue, the uptight librarian, and the nurturing mother, there is one stereotype that seems to dominate the film industry today: the Vixen. The Vixen originated from the classic Femme Fatale of the popular noir films of the late 1940s: the progressive, independent, daring woman made famous by the post-WWII feelings of female liberation. Yet where the Femme Fatale symbolized power and independence, this image has now devolved into the kind of shallow beauty now mass-produced by the film industry and marketed toward young men ages 18-24. It is the Vixen that has made the careers of such sex kittens like Cameron Diaz, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Ritchie, Pamela Anderson, Carmen Electra, Selma Hayek, and the infamous Megan Fox.

Megan Fox has become the singular iconic image of beauty, sexuality, and basically female perfection in our culture. Despite her flourishing career and overwhelming success as an actress, her so-called “acting” talents basically revolve around looking gorgeous, and seducing any man that comes her way. Take for example, her performance in Transformers as the sexy, seductive seventeen-year-old Mikaela which jumpstarted her career. The extent of her role in the film is basically running around wearing scant clothing, bending over the hood of cars and motorcycles in suggestive positions, pouting her lips, and basically just standing/running around and looking gorgeous while doing it.

Fox is the pinnacle of what a woman should be like based on the perspective of our media: beautiful, seductive, and most importantly, a figurehead. Women like Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Marion Cotillard or other celebrities who are equally beautiful, and significantly more talented and intelligent are ignored by the mass media and placed in roles seen as “more fitting” to their age. Despite the fact that all of these women were nominated for various different Golden Globe awards this past year for their acting talents, their names and faces aren’t plastered all over newspapers, television programs or magazines. Instead, the film industry sells young, beautiful, vulnerable women as advertising objects in order to get moviegoers to see their films.

Regardless of sex or gender, the sexualization of women in the media is clearly a problem. A recent documentary, by model-turned-filmmaker Nicole Clark, called Cover Girl Culture explores the sexualization and hypersexuality of women as portrayed by, who are perhaps the pioneers of the sexploitation of women, the fashion industry. The documentary revolves around a series of shocking interviews by young girls and women, parents, models, body image experts, psychologists, and even some of highest-ranking names in fashion themselves. What is even more shocking is how some of the fashion editors’ defend their magazines’ portrayal of women, and how their arguments are a direct contrast to what the models themselves and even psychologists and body experts say is actually happening.

In today’s society, a woman is defined be her sexuality and beauty and accepted to the standards dictated by the mass media. What advertisers, fashion magazine editors, TV executives and filmmakers believe as shameless images to advertise, to be funny, to shock, and most importantly, to sell, are images that are damaging to how women are perceived in the public’s eye and how women perceive themselves. Women are far more than what the media makes them to be. Women are not objects: they are people with minds, personalities, values, and beliefs that make them worth far more than their sexuality.