Barbie

After our group process about the readings  “Sex, Gender, Desire” by Butler and “Barbie” by Steinberg I related the sex and subjectivity of women in today’s society with present day AXE body spray commercials.  These ads are mediating a stereotypical fantasy in the eyes of our today’s audiences distorting reality to sell a product.  Why do I say this? AXE ads do not consist of much, they consist a male individual doing everyday activities, he then at some point in time takes out a can of AXE body spray and sprays it over is chest and underarms. Before you know it, every woman in the commercial is staring at him and sexually attracted to him as if they were all hypnotized at once.   I felt that this was not only a saturation of reality, but enforces the inferiority of women in today’s society.  Today, it does take more than a spray out of a can to get the attention of a women and it has always been that way.  But the equalization of women has created a large setback in feminist movants which has made women more subjective in the media.  In Sheinberg’s article he claims that this “bitch has everything” and it is easier to discuss what she doesn’t have then what she does have because that list is much shorter.  Barbie is not even of accurate human proportion, in other words her hips are too small for her organs to even function.  It is just a doll but when people are paying more than 300 dollars for a jacket for her, the image of women in our society isn’t where it should be.  Butler talks about identify on page 18 relating it to sex gender and sexual practice, and with the public not knowing the difference of sex and gender and the fact that gender is socially constructed, on top of Barbie looking like a whore to get and RV, a car, a boyfriend, and everything else, such things can hurt the reputation of women in the long run.