WHO SAID SHE’S BEAUTIFUL?

Becca Guerin, Caitlin Guffy,

Sadie Olen, Katie Dapper

IDEAS ABOUT BEAUTY

Advertisers definition What look is right?

Insecure needs

Obsession

Judge others

Naturally Fake

Not good enough

Youth Who are you impressing?

Target: Kids and Teens

Why do you think the things you do?

Historical Context: Women and Advertising

1920’s- “Advertisers learned to wrap products in the tissue of dreams…instead of selling phonographs, they sold enjoyment, the painted glamour” The “war on fat” The consumer was a ‘she’, the ‘New Woman’

Embodied the promise of modernity- youth, sexual freedom, style and conspicuous consumptions

The 1930’s- Time of the Great Depression, Curvaceous celebs offered women “borrowed glamour” Attempts to energize the depressed market with

emotional appeals Hollywood star endorsements- Sophia Loren,

Elizabeth Taylor (Twitchell)

MORE HISTORY

1940’s- Wartime Propaganda Encouraged women to “labor for country and

family, rather than money, status and security” 1950’s- Advertising staged in the home,

“idealized the domestic sphere” “Housewife” roles, dramas of romance and

family life Television expanded “Victorian Middle-Class Society/Family” (Sivulka,

52).

More History…

1960’s- Wider Category of beauty (“waiflike to voluptuous, sophisticated to puckish) Housewives were marginalized more by

obsession with power, sex and youth Perfume ads to tell stories of love and conquest

Told women HOW to smell, to attract men (Twitchell, 167).

1970’s-Women’s Liberation Movements Less portrayal of women in work world, women

were “poised on bring of domestic failure” saved by packaged efficiency and convenience

More History…

1980’s- “Charlie” campaign (1987) “challenged

advertisers to incorporate feminist sensibilities” Use of progressive slogans

1990’s – Broadening of feminine beauty and success Variables of age, ethnicity, accomplishment

Profiling by Type

“The Independent Woman”-1990’s “The Love Tutor”- seduces women to compete

in the ‘love market’ Maternal figures failed

“The Sex Kitten”- eroticism to the product Catch men and women’s eyes

Proven studies with Woodbury Soap (Twitchell) show women respond more strongly to sexualized image of other women

“Urging women to attract a man” (Sivulka, 52) Benefits of “softness, sex appeal” with use of product

(Sivulka, 110).

“The Homemaker”- 1950’s queen of the ‘domestic sphere’

CREATE YOUR OWN DEFINITION OF BEAUTY

Works Cited Kurtz, Jan. “Dream Girls: Women in Advertising- Advertising

History”. USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education). FindArticles.com 26 March, 2011. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_n2620_v125/ai_19029242/

Sivulka, Juliann “Soap, Sex and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising”. California, Wadsworth, 1998.

Twitchell, James B. “Twenty Ads That Shook the World”. New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2000.