You see it constantly in print advertising and commercials: advertisers show close-ups of women’s legs to sell razors; they show close-ups of women’s breasts to sell bras; they show close-ups of women’s backsides to sell underwear. And they show close-ups of a combination of women’s body parts to sell beer, fast food, cigarettes, cologne, cars, shampoo, and countless other products. By dismembering women in such a way, the women being objectified, and hence, all women who live in the society where the advertised products can be consumed, ultimately become the objects of consumption themselves, and as such, cease to exist as human beings with feelings, intellect, and identities.
In a society that treats women merely as a collection of body parts, airbrushed to perfection, it caters to the pleasure of men, who then reduce women to body parts in everyday life. It’s no wonder women can barely walk down the street without being cat-called or ogled by individual men or entire groups of them, which serves as yet another patriarchal power trip, further subjugating women and their existence as actual people.
Unfortunately, movie posters also fall into the all-too-easy and uncreative trap of exploiting womens' bodies in order to sell their films. I find it most disturbing that even films such as Bend It Like Beckham and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants also fall into the stereotypical “advertise women’s asses” approach to promoting a film. Both movies can be (and have been) read and reviewed as feminist in that they promote sisterhood and also significantly pass The Bechdel Test (which we’ve established seems embarrassingly elusive to most mainstream films).
Here's a selection of movie posters advertising different genres that all use a woman's backside to sell a film. Leave your thoughts about the posters, or other films that use similar imagery, in the comments.
In a society that treats women merely as a collection of body parts, airbrushed to perfection, it caters to the pleasure of men, who then reduce women to body parts in everyday life. It’s no wonder women can barely walk down the street without being cat-called or ogled by individual men or entire groups of them, which serves as yet another patriarchal power trip, further subjugating women and their existence as actual people.
Unfortunately, movie posters also fall into the all-too-easy and uncreative trap of exploiting womens' bodies in order to sell their films. I find it most disturbing that even films such as Bend It Like Beckham and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants also fall into the stereotypical “advertise women’s asses” approach to promoting a film. Both movies can be (and have been) read and reviewed as feminist in that they promote sisterhood and also significantly pass The Bechdel Test (which we’ve established seems embarrassingly elusive to most mainstream films).
Here's a selection of movie posters advertising different genres that all use a woman's backside to sell a film. Leave your thoughts about the posters, or other films that use similar imagery, in the comments.
1 comment:
I completely agree with your post.
I think the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants poster bothers me both more and less than the other posters. Less because the pants are holding a picture of the four best friends, giving them identities*, and more because 1. why didn't they just use a picture like that for the cover (or a thousand better options), and 2. the women - while played by older actors - are all supposed to be teens in this movie, which means the poster is of a teen girl's ass. Like we don't sexualize youth enough...
*Some of the other posters hold objects that represent the character, true (like the shoes in Bend It Like Beckham), but the picture is the actual picture of the four women, not just an object representing them. (I may be giving them too much credit though.)
I'm curious if there is a part two - such as cameras lingering on butts and breasts in movies- which is just the second step of turning women into one "sexual" body part.
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