 |
| I bet this grabbed some peoples' attention... |
An honest disclosure is certainly
appropriate before debating the following advertisement; the beer being
advertised is a non-alcoholic beer. That being said, the advertisement does not
follow the average template most beer ads use. Typically, models in alcohol
advertisements are not pregnant. In this instance, the combination of the
nonalcoholic product and the model’s pregnancy should shift the viewer’s vantage
point because it is nontraditional. There is a pressure the woman faces in
which she, for health reasons, normally would not consume alcohol. However,
this ad forces an alternative on the woman. It is as if the woman cannot escape
social conventions that implicate she should either consume or serve alcohol,
regardless of her circumstances. Mass media portrays beer and women as the ideal package. When placed together in
advertisements, one always complements the other. When each item is separated, they hold completely
different connotations.
What
enables beer and women to be classified in one category? Pleasure, in the Epicurean
sense, is the most desirable gratification for human beings. When is beer to be
consumed? When individuals want to have an enjoyable time. Why are women
typically shown serving beer? Because they add to the pleasure the beer already
guarantees. Women, in this instance, promise sensuality. In this particular
advertisement, before getting ahead of ourselves and stating that she is
pregnant, the viewers are presented with a picturesque female. A sharp model’s
face, breasts covered by gold, and long legs that compliment her hips. All of
these qualities, as well as the slightly disheveled hair and piercing eyes, are
welcoming. The model invites the viewer to partake in consumption. The
consumption of first the alcohol, which is being handed out as an initial
allure, is then followed by the consumption of what the woman has to
offer.
One
might ask, “What is the problem in that? Why is it wrong to consume what is
being put forth so readily available?” The answer: mass advertising has given
the consumer the false illusion that he has entire power over what he wants
because his money somehow impacts the
advertisers. And while many economists and business leaders might argue that
power rests in the hands of the consumer, it does not in the instance shown
above. The deception the ad holds is presented when the consumer consumes; he
is not handed a beer from the woman above. The only promise that the
advertisement keeps is the distribution of the actual product.
“Well, isn’t that
the aim of the advertisement?” Absolutely. But the consumer is left without the
promised sensuality from the woman standing in an inviting posture. Only the advertisers
achieve what they want: profit. But at what expense, or rather, at whose expense do the advertisers benefit
from? The consumer who purchased the product for its own sole purpose is not
exploited. Not as much as the woman in the picture, one could say. The
advertisers have taken full advantage of the woman’s physical qualities. The breasts that happen to be covered in a gold brassiere are not coincidentally
placed next to the golden yellow beer.
Referring back to
Freud, is it not the breasts that the infant desired so fervently? “Freud thought
that the infant was transiently attached to the mother’s breast in the oral
stage…”[1]
Consequently, adults “exhibiting these features of personality are also given
to ‘oral’ habits, like…overindulgence in alcohol.”[2]
It is at the expenditure of the woman’s physical (and only physical) qualities
that the advertisement would catch the consumer’s eyes. The photograph suggests
that the beer goes great with a large breast nearby.
“How is that
degrading?” The exposed woman’s body generally invites one category of
consumers: men. Men (and women) will drink beer to achieve some level of
pleasure: relaxation, slight intoxication, or drinking to forget. But the
placement of the beer next to the breast implies that drinking the alcohol is
as good as the golden breast. They
complement one another as if they were equal. Sharing the singe trait of
pleasure, a human being’s body is lowered to the level of alcohol. When
separate, hopefully people would place higher value on dignity over a manmade
depressant. But when they are put together in an ad, the viewer accepts the reduction
of the woman to the level of the beer.
What beer
advertisements create as a side effect more often than not is the zeroing in on
women’s external qualities. Like many advertisements that use female actresses
or models, the woman is always depicted as inferior. Between the viewer and the
pregnant woman shown above, the woman is consequently lower than the viewer
because she promises to hand over the almighty beer. It can be then be argued
that the woman, therefore, possesses the power if she holds the product. Again,
the advertisers give a false illusion. The beer is not for the woman to give. The
woman in the Nova Schin ad is not actually giving the consumer the beer. The
standstill woman is just an invitation for purchasing a beer. She does not
directly benefit from giving it away. Ultimately, she has no say on who
purchases “her” beer.
If the above
arguments were not enough to suggest that the woman is being degraded through
the exploitation of her external features, than what does her pregnancy imply?
A quick reminder for this argument is that in this specific ad, Nova Schin is
advertising a non-alcoholic beer. (Yet, it only takes a second example, like
the Budweiser advertisement, to prove that alcoholic beer advertisements
exploit women in the same manner.) Nevertheless, what the pregnant woman
portrays more plainly is social pressure. Though the advertisement may or may
not be for men; if the Nova Schin ad is targeted at women, it suggests that
there is no reason to not drink under any circumstances, even during one’s
pregnancy. Similarly, if the men who consume the product encounter a wife,
girlfriend, or random woman that is pregnant, the external goods that women
typically offer are depicted as available when there is simultaneously a
non-alcoholic beer. This makes viewers uncomfortable because it is indecent and
unnatural. Society does not typically place pregnant women alongside alcohol.
The blatant
implications of both ads suggest the consumption of either the product first
and then the female, or vice versa. The placement of the woman in the Budweiser
ad suggests that one must get through her to reach the product where, as stated
before, the Nova Schin has to be consumed as an initiation to reach the
promised “goods.” In either instance, the woman is exploited through the
exposure of her body for the false promise that consuming either product will
bring instant pleasure, whether it is through the breasts or the beer.
