WST200 Midterm Assignment

Part I:

Source One: http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/print/2007/4/absolut-pregnant-man.jpg

In Absolut Vodka's "In an Absolut World" advertisements, the company asserts their power by claiming to be able to make a person's dreamworld. In this specific advertisement, they are portraying the ideal world for a woman. Although gender roles have evolved over the years, stereotypes still exist. Women have the expectation to be the care-givers because they are biologically built to carry children and are assumed to have that motherly instinct. On the other hand, men have the expectation to be the bread winners and thus the head of the household. In this world, the men have the upper hand. In the dream world this company creates, the gendered roles switch. Men are the care-givers and the women are the bread winners. The power shifts in favor of women. The woman in the image is significantly happier than the man who has a rather stern look on his face. We assume the man feels a burden with the heavy weight of child breaing while the woman is happier with her choice to wear whatever she wishes and drink whatever she wishes. This can be seen as a spin on the nuclear family. There is a mother, father, and child in what we assume a white upper middle class suburban neighborhood based on their appearances. The woman labors at the workplace while the man presumably labors at domestic chores. Are the terms "mother" and "father" the same although the roles have switched? Do men finally feel what women have felt for centuries? Perhaps, in an Absolut world.

Source Two: http://adsoftheworld.com/files/images/absolutperfect.preview.jpg

Another one of Absolut Vodka's advertisements in their "In an Absolut World" series is this image. The woman seems to have ordered the "perfect" male who is strong, smart, romantic, talented and professional. It seems to portray the iamge that women aren't capable of being independent and seek the company of a man who can be what she perhaps lacks. The image does not show how women can be strong on their own. The power is still in men's hands because they are the ones who women are searching for. On the other hand, the image also treats men as commodities that can be ordered and delivered to the front door.

Source Three: http://www.highsnobiety.com/uploads/RTEmagicC_nascover.jpg.jpg

Controversy was stirred up when the image of Nas' shirtless back appeared on the cover of his album. The lash markings on his back are in reference to slavery and the mistreatment of slaves by their owners. This is part of labor history in the United States. Many slaves wer transported from Africa to the Americas as commodities, not even thought of as humans, yet rather as mere objects. The power was not in the slaves' hands, but the hands of the owners who were the cause of the lash markings. This image is a bold statement of the history of African Americans in the United States, how this history has laid foundation for our country, and where we have come thus far.

Source Four: http://www.rebeccawilsonlundin.com/TWTPortfolio/Benetton.jpg

The powers between light and dark are linked in this image by Benetton. The image shows a balanced power between black and white under the forces of the law. The cuffs on the hands of these men assert the equality between the two. The uniformed clothing of the two men gives a sense of one-ness despite the pre-existing color binaries. Overall, this print advertisement asserts the equality in humanity despite the binaries created thus far.