I was watching TV at a bar the other night and some
commercials came on with subtitles. At the beginning of every commercial in the
subtitles it would specify if it was a male or female announcer. I know that advertising
is one of the most gendered and stereotype prone aspects of popular culture,
but I was still surprised to see that this extended even into the closed
captioning. When I thought about it further, however, it made sense that with
the amount of research and money that went into writing and planning the
commercials to appeal to specific audiences, they would want to carry over as
much as possible when there was no sound. This written representation really
helped to expose the fact that advertisements view men and women as entirely
different markets, and in doing so, help to further segregate our culture.
I see you point, but I dont see this a big deal. Women and Men are different, and that is never going to change. Some things are directed to women that men don't need like tampons. In a commercial for tampons why we we want a man in it, that would be weird and uncomfortable. Instead of worrying about girls and boys being the same, we should focus on accepting that WE are different and we always will be and thats okay, but we should all have equal opportunities, pay, rights etc.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that they do the captioning depending on the gender, but I think it is kind of due to the marketing towards a specific target market.
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