Representation of Women in Adverts

Advertising is an interesting aspect to look at when studying the representation of a specific group of people because it does two things; firstly, adverts tend to represent the status quo of society at the time and any hegomonies that may exist. For example, that football is our national sport. Secondly, adverts represent an ideal that people must aspire to.

We watched a series of Fairy Liquid advertisements from the 1960s to the present day, we discovered that women are represented traditionally idealistic way, for example the 1960s to the 1990s adverts all followed a similar story line of a mother teaching her daughter about Fairy Liquid whilst doing the washing up in the kitchen, they all emphasise the fact that the product made your hands soft, suggesting that this is something that would've been important to women. The characters used in the adverts are all 'well spoken', which could be to show that the people who use the product have high standards so the product must be of high quality.

The more modern adverts for Fairy Liquid differ as the little girls that featured in the adverts before, were replaced by little boys, widening out the demographics. By 2012, the Fairy Liquid advert Olympics edition features a father character helping with the washing, however the focus is still on the mum and how she will bring up the son to be an athlete. There is a male voice over stating how its takes 'a lot of dishes' and 'a lot of washing up' for 'mum to build an athlete'.

Fairy Liquid has become such an established product, that in 2013 the company produced an advertisement that is a montage of all their classic adverts up to the present day. They all display the stereotypical view of a woman in the home and it shows how the product has been around for  a long amount of time. A main selling point of the product is emphasised by the statement 'I hardly ever buy Fairy Liquid' which refers to how the product is long lasting and reliable. This is all significant as the company have used past advertisements to romanticise the past.

British Cinema and Represenation

We are looking at ways women have been presented in British cinema over time. We started by watching Vertigo (1958) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, applying Laura Mulberry's theory if the male gaze. Currently, we are looking at contemporary British cinema and they ways British films constructs, reinforce or challenge notions of identity (the burden of representation) and the conflict between successful commercial films in contrast to cultural UK films. We examined the trailers for Notting Hill (1999) and Bend It Like Beckham (2002) which were commercially successful films but also challenge the representation of women through a humorous view of stereotypes. We are considering the dilemma film makers have between making films that are commercially successful and might attract an American audience and social realist films by directors like Ken Loach, which are critically acclaimed but give a much bleaker representation of society in general. Next, we will look at the representation of women in contemporary British films such as Fast Girls (2012), The Kings Speech (2010), It's A Wonderful Afterlife (2010) and The Angel's Share (2012).