Women and Advertising Project

            

At first when I saw this assignment I had no idea how I was going to add up to the original Ryan Gosling Ads, but then while looking through ads on FaceBook I found the perfect one. I chose The Walking Dead because of it’s relevance to current events and what we are talking about in class.

            I related this ad to the Walking Dead because of the whole idea of the zombie apocalypse. Generally, the zombie apocalypse has to do with zombies eating everyone’s brains. Taking the zombie apocalypse idea a step further, I decided to make a joke out of the zombie’s goals of eating brains and to say that they are the only species to support women for their brains. “Dominant U.S. culture often reduces women to bodies, valuing us only as sex objects or as bearers of children ” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 208).

            The ad I made relates to what we are talking about in class because it relates directly to the beauty ideal. The beauty ideal, which we talked about in last chapter, has to do with society’s expectations of what a woman should look like to be considered professional, beautiful, or successful. The beauty ideal is a huge problem in our society and should be treated as one, however the first step to this is awareness.

            Awareness of the beauty ideal should be taken a step further, there should be international campaigns showing just how ridiculous the beauty ideal is, and that was the goal of my project. If we take the beauty ideal, and make it seem like one big joke then people will treat it as one. Right now the beauty ideal is taken seriously and that the problem is people who are going against the expectations that society holds. In reality, the beauty ideal only fits one group of people while the rest of us suffer through the feeling of inadequacy, therefore it is the problem. 

Kirk, Gwyn , and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives. 5th ed. New York, New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. 207-210. Print.

Stanley, T.L. Media Freak: The Walking Dead. 2010. Media FreakWeb. 16 Oct 2012. <http://www.mediafreakblog.com/2010/07/amc-betting-big-on-flesheating-zombies.html>.