Background to the situation in the fifties
From the historical perspective, the fifties were a throwback for women and their emancipation, especially when we are focusing on the USA. During the Second World War, women were needed in the work force to substitute for the men who joined the troops. They were needed to prevent the downfall of the US and provide for those on front, and generally to keep the country going despite the wartime. However, after the war and the turbulent times, the men returned home and meant to regain their positions of the breadwinners, what resulted in that the women were rather unnecessary in the workforce and were expected to once again become the caregivers (Walker, 1995). Except for the fact that there was no place for women who wished to pursue their professional career, because of the positions being filled by the men, another aspect that was crucial for how the fifties looked was the social development. The society strived for peace after the unsettled years of war, and therefore aimed to reflect such wish in how it was ordered. The concept of family became central to the overarching idea of peace and therefore the gender roles became thoroughly enforced by the people. The era of the fifties, underlined by the rejection of any violence resulted in "a modulated age; everyone seemed smothered in a blanket of inertia, apathy, and conformity" (Miller & Nowak, 1977, p.131).
On the contrary to the unorthodoxy of the previous decade, the fifties aimed to provide perfection by introducing the model of family where a man would be the ideal head of the family, the breadwinner, and the supporter, while the woman would present an ideal housewife, ready to create the best atmosphere in their own home. This, however ideal it might seem, resulted in social norms preventing any female emancipation. The post-war era could be seen as uniformly repressive, oppressive, and miserable, especially for the women who had no way of escaping the image of perfect housewife (Betty Friedman – edit). The gender binarism played a huge role in the decade. It is an anthropological idea that female and male traits are disconnected and completely opposite (Oldehinkel, 2017). Therefore, for one gender to be strong, the other has to be weak, for one to be clever, the other must not be. Women became relatively trapped in the society, where their function reduced to be the decorative housewives to the strong and powerful men.
The rise of popularity and affordability of TV during the fifties also resulted in new platform where various products could be promoted (Science Education and Electronics Division of the Institution of Electrical Engineers et al., 1986). Moreover, television commercials offered numerous new tools that could be used to make people want to buy the promoted products. Music is able to make you feel emotion, spoken word and the tone of voice can make even a bad offer sound more appealing and moving pictures can better convey the message of how the product might work than just an image in the newspapers. Therefore the increased amount of people who were watching TV regularly created a new market space not only for presenting products, but also for creating and maintaining some ideas, among other things, gender roles.
On the contrary to the unorthodoxy of the previous decade, the fifties aimed to provide perfection by introducing the model of family where a man would be the ideal head of the family, the breadwinner, and the supporter, while the woman would present an ideal housewife, ready to create the best atmosphere in their own home. This, however ideal it might seem, resulted in social norms preventing any female emancipation. The post-war era could be seen as uniformly repressive, oppressive, and miserable, especially for the women who had no way of escaping the image of perfect housewife (Betty Friedman – edit). The gender binarism played a huge role in the decade. It is an anthropological idea that female and male traits are disconnected and completely opposite (Oldehinkel, 2017). Therefore, for one gender to be strong, the other has to be weak, for one to be clever, the other must not be. Women became relatively trapped in the society, where their function reduced to be the decorative housewives to the strong and powerful men.
The rise of popularity and affordability of TV during the fifties also resulted in new platform where various products could be promoted (Science Education and Electronics Division of the Institution of Electrical Engineers et al., 1986). Moreover, television commercials offered numerous new tools that could be used to make people want to buy the promoted products. Music is able to make you feel emotion, spoken word and the tone of voice can make even a bad offer sound more appealing and moving pictures can better convey the message of how the product might work than just an image in the newspapers. Therefore the increased amount of people who were watching TV regularly created a new market space not only for presenting products, but also for creating and maintaining some ideas, among other things, gender roles.
Ads to analyse
The wast majority of the ads in the 1950's has been very similar. When it came to female beauty, the normativity of the period has caused that the motives and the imagery of the commercials and various campaigns appears to be repretitive at times.
Therefore, rather than exploring each campaign separately, let us focus on different aspects in all of the ads analyzed to present coherent findings in the form of: visual analysis
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Visual analysis
Portrayal of women
Focuse group discussion covered the unrealistic and idealised image of woman in the advertisement, which implies that the image is constructed in order to comply with the sociental norms
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it looks fake, she doesn't look real, she looks as if someone has painted her |
The portrayal of women in the commercial is stereotypical and supports the gender binarism of the fifties. Naturally, since the commercials are trying to sell the product to women, their presence in it is inevitable. But in order to show how beauty is understood, all the women portrayed in the ads are presented in a very similar manner. First of all, the women chosen for the commercials are very aesthetically pretty. Their faces are symmetrical and classically beautiful with big eyes and heart-shaped faces. All these women naturally use the product that is being promoted, so the consumers can attribute the beauty of the women to the products. Secondly, when we look at their expression, it is difficult to spot differences. All women portrayed in the commercials seem very pleased and happy, with wide smiles and sparkly eyes. There is no sign of negative emotion. Moreover, the looks make them look very feminine, and even a bit fragile with their porcelain skin, and gentle curls, or silky dresses with ruffles. They are also definitely appreciative of the product as one is smiling while using it. This whole image created by the producers is stereotypical of women of the era. None of the women is remarkable on their own, either by their own image or by the way they are portrayed in the commercial. On the contrary, their portrayal is extraordinarily homogeneous, none of them stands out in any way, none of them shows any sign of uniqueness. They are well maintained, as it was expected of them, but at the same tie rather forgettable.
The portrayal of the women enhances the idea of women serving solely decorative purposes. Beauty shown is the only acceptable standard and therefore all of them look more or less the same. The cream is supposed to only amplify such beauty. They represent everything that was expected of the women of that era - fragile, doll-like looking woman completely adhering to the social standards and norms. |
Portrayal of men
On the other hand, the portrayal of the man is there for a completely different reason. In the Camay commercial, the man appears in the shot only towards the end. This composition implies that the man is the goal, the final destination, and that once a woman is using the cream and becomes beautiful, she is eligible to get a man. We do not get to see his whole face, but he is looking lovingly at a woman who has used the beauty product promoted. Therefore, the male presence in the commercial once again helps to send the message that you need to use the product to be beautiful and then you will have the chance to achieve the important – have a man.
The man in the picture used in the Palmolive campaign is used in a similar manner. They both are the goal for the women, and they need to be beautiful in order to achieve it. But another dimension that is created by this advertisement is the point of view of the man. He is leaning lovingly towards the woman, looking very closely at her skin. The underlying message of how the man is presented is that he truly wants the woman, and along with the agenda of the ad to promote a product, we get the feeling that the woman is wanted because she has been using the product. In order to be loved by a man, a woman has to be beautiful, and once she is, she can achieve her goal. The man is once again the prize for a woman. A goal that she should want to achieve and the ad is giving her the means to do so. Men in the third commercial have a bit different position than the men from Camay and Palmolive. Rather than being a goal of the women, they are authorities when it come to the product. Despite the fact, that it is a female product that is being advertised, men are questioned to provide their insights into how to use it and what would be their recommendation. This, through the then-present gender binarism put men in the powerful position, while keeping women inferior. They just were supposed to accept the recommendations from the men, and then look beautiful. Therefore, the whole portrayal of men in the commercials is based on the idea of his superiority over the women and the image of a man as a goal of the women, once they are beautiful enough. |
Motive of the bride
The moment of the 'transition' was noticed and actively discussed by the focus group: interestingly, that not only the ideas of the advertisement from the past, but also the images themselves could cause confusion and rejection.
- That's so creepy when she changes, when she becomes like a wife - look at her face... The photoshop of that time |
This narrative in the Camay commercial is also further supported by the motive of wedded woman. Its role is very specific, because the commercial mostly focus on the praising of the product from numerous perspectives, but this motive gives us an insight into what might be the long-term ‘benefits’ that should every woman aspire to get one way or another. It presents the marriage as a natural step once a woman uses Camay cream. This is presents two assumption. Firstly, women need to be beautiful to get married and Camay can help them to achieve that and secondly, that getting married is a goal for women. The first assumption is portrayed through the narrative of this particular part. They present the woman as ‘now Mrs’, along with the mention that she started using the cream. This implies the connection between the cream and her wedding, presuming that she needed the cream, thus she needed to be beautiful in order to actually get married. Second assumption is shown through presenting of the fact that she is married as some kind of an achievement. It is similarly shown at the end of the clip with the man and woman in the car, as already mentioned. Getting a man seemed to be an important milestone, something all the women were striving for, or at least the commercial promotes it in such way. Therefore, these two assumptions hidden in the motive of the bride once again symbolically represent the place of the woman in the society – by her man. And such position is desirable, and can be achieved if one is beautiful.
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Lexical analysis
Surprisingly enough, despite soap being mostly connected to washing and cleaning, the campaigns present the effects of it in a rather vague way. The most used words in the ads connected to the results of using of the product are beauty and loveliness. This suggests that rather than attracting women by the real effects of the soap, that it helps against microbes and with skin cleansing, the commercials reflects the then-understanding of femaleness. Therefore it appeals to what women should find the most important as the era suggests – their beauty that can help them to comfortable life.
The word LOVELYThe way the words were used in the ads also supports the narrative of women being a decoration and that all they have to worry about is their beauty. One of the interesting words used in the ads that shows the women’s role is the word Lovely. ‘Lovelier complexion’ or 'Lovlier skin' is not necessarily an attribute that we perceive today in the advertisement when one refers to improved skin. It does not explain the effects of the soap, in terms of what it will actually do to one’s skin – either cleans or plums or helps with blackheads or other things that the soaps usually do. Rather than stating it clearly, it provides an overarching word lovelier. The connotation of the word is definitely related to more feminine trait, never used for men. This abstract adjective refers to ‘Very beautiful or attractive’ or ‘Very pleasant or enjoyable; delightful’ (Anon, 2018a) – therefore presenting beauty in a rather intangible manner.
The bottomline of using such expressions is that the user does not have to care what precisely does it help with, but the result is important. And in this case was the result, despite being so abstract, so sought for that it worked well. Women simply wanted to be beautiful, because how else would they get married? Only once you read the full advertisement for Palmolive, you will notice that there is the rest of the information, but it was not enough to be used in the title. In the Camay ad, its precise effects are omitted, leaving women with only the vision of beauty and trust in authority that the soaps can provide it. The word BEAUTYThe word beauty is also of importance in both of the commercials. In the ads the word beauty is used in numerous phrases. According to Oxford Dictionaries, beauty is “A combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.”
Do shadows cloud your beauty? Soap of beautiful women The soap that beautiful women choose Complexion beauty Beautifying lather Beauty results All of these phrases are very vague and either refer to the people who are using the products as beautiful or present the beautifying effects of the products. Idea of having beautiful women as customers can either mean that only beautiful women buy these products, or that once you use the product, you are beautiful. In any case, the message sent by such statements is that women should aspire to be beautiful. In the connection to the implicit idea of women searching for men, frequent choice of such word just exaggerates the rather superficial idea that women exist to be beautiful. |
Audio analysis
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The audio in the commercial also helps to convey the message and maintain the gender roles, but in a more subtle way than the previous two tools of the producers. This tool, specific for the commercials helped to further enhance the subtle message in the Camay campaign. At first, we hear a woman sing telling us that for clearer skin, we should use Camay. This statement is very simple, it just shows the product’s aim. But the fact that the woman is singing it starts to create an atmosphere and establishes the place of the woman in the spot – she is supposed to be a decoration. The information itself could have been explained in a spoken word, and since it actually contains important information – what the product aims to do, the sentence itself does not serve just the decorative purposes. The fact that it is sung shifts its importance and puts it more into the
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background. Similarly to the introduction of the female voice in the commercial, every other woman in the commercial sings as well. Such choice of the producers definitely helps to make the decorative function of the women more enhanced in the context of the commercial.
As opposed to this, the male voice, in the narrative of gender binarism, fulfills a different function. At first, we hear a man say: Camay, the soap of beautiful women. The fact that this statement is spoken by a man definitely has its own symbolic value. Men are the ones who establish which woman is beautiful. Subsequently men are the one who justify woman’s beauty. This justification part can be seen in the visual aid in the commercial and print where a man is the final judge of women’s beauty by looking at the skin and by choosing her as a partner, or in the motive of bride. Thus, woman’s worth, which is only based on her beauty, rather than something else, is determined by the men, what helps to create a hierarchical relationship. Moreover, throughout the whole video, the man is not singing, but clearly stating various facts about the product. He promotes much more substantive information about the product. He talks about its qualities and how to use it, rather than just singing some vague statement. Thus a man’s voice is the voice of authority, the voice that provides important information and therefore the voice that should be primarily taken into consideration. Once again, man has the stronger position in the ad.
Overall, we see that while the informative role of the women in the context of this commercial was not really big despite the fact, that the product was aimed to appeal to women, the male speaker was able to provide the information. Therefore, while it might be necessary to show the results, and to promote what opportunities the product might give you by the usage of women, the authority when it comes to information remains in the hands of the men. They are the ones providing us with the detail and thus are able to retain the superior role throughout the whole clip as being the knowledgeable ones. This is not necessarily something that the company itself was trying to convey, but it definitely reflects the era, where the voices of women were silent.
As opposed to this, the male voice, in the narrative of gender binarism, fulfills a different function. At first, we hear a man say: Camay, the soap of beautiful women. The fact that this statement is spoken by a man definitely has its own symbolic value. Men are the ones who establish which woman is beautiful. Subsequently men are the one who justify woman’s beauty. This justification part can be seen in the visual aid in the commercial and print where a man is the final judge of women’s beauty by looking at the skin and by choosing her as a partner, or in the motive of bride. Thus, woman’s worth, which is only based on her beauty, rather than something else, is determined by the men, what helps to create a hierarchical relationship. Moreover, throughout the whole video, the man is not singing, but clearly stating various facts about the product. He promotes much more substantive information about the product. He talks about its qualities and how to use it, rather than just singing some vague statement. Thus a man’s voice is the voice of authority, the voice that provides important information and therefore the voice that should be primarily taken into consideration. Once again, man has the stronger position in the ad.
Overall, we see that while the informative role of the women in the context of this commercial was not really big despite the fact, that the product was aimed to appeal to women, the male speaker was able to provide the information. Therefore, while it might be necessary to show the results, and to promote what opportunities the product might give you by the usage of women, the authority when it comes to information remains in the hands of the men. They are the ones providing us with the detail and thus are able to retain the superior role throughout the whole clip as being the knowledgeable ones. This is not necessarily something that the company itself was trying to convey, but it definitely reflects the era, where the voices of women were silent.
Focus groups on the topic of commercials from the fifties
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We started a discussion - feel free to join: Focus group immediately recognized the message of the advertisement and participants were rather skeptical towards its simplicity and limited perception of the opportunities for women self-realization.
* To learn more about our Focus group - press on the button below: |
What does it all mean?
People who we decided to talk with about the ads for this era agree with the findings to which we got through the discourse analysis of the various ads. The participants focused, similarly to our points on the perception of women and how were they portrayed in the commercial.
The one overarching theme is the motive of marriage to which the participants had a lot to say. The commercial for Camay, in their view, suggested that to get a man, you have to use the soap. Naturally, since the participants are from our era that views women in a completely different manner (see part about 21st century for more information), they detected this idea enforced on women from the society. The idea that a woman is good only for marriage, adn she has no way of expressing herself in any way.
This is in complete alignment with our findings that suggest that the gender binarism prevented women from any position of power and from any possibilities to gain a bigger role than to simply be a decorative object in the hands of the men. The era that has defined these commercials simply presented men as authorities and justifiers of women's worth, while women were just these fragile lovely faces.
To conclude, these commercials perfectly represents the era in which they were created. The fifties in the Western world aimed to try and get back to how it was before the beginning of war. Therefore, the roles of men and women were defined in a completely different manner, and understood in a framework of completely different responsibilities and goals. The ads give us insight into what a woman was supposed to be like as opposed to a man. A woman was playing decorative role to the manly men. Various audio-visual and textual tools of the producers helped to define this. Women were there portrayed as beauties, whose main aim is to remain in such way, because that is the way how they can achieve their life goal – to win a man. Women on their own had no value, unless it was justified by man’s approval – in form of actual words, or by getting together with the woman. The way this ad portrays the woman reflects the society which existed at that time.
The one overarching theme is the motive of marriage to which the participants had a lot to say. The commercial for Camay, in their view, suggested that to get a man, you have to use the soap. Naturally, since the participants are from our era that views women in a completely different manner (see part about 21st century for more information), they detected this idea enforced on women from the society. The idea that a woman is good only for marriage, adn she has no way of expressing herself in any way.
This is in complete alignment with our findings that suggest that the gender binarism prevented women from any position of power and from any possibilities to gain a bigger role than to simply be a decorative object in the hands of the men. The era that has defined these commercials simply presented men as authorities and justifiers of women's worth, while women were just these fragile lovely faces.
To conclude, these commercials perfectly represents the era in which they were created. The fifties in the Western world aimed to try and get back to how it was before the beginning of war. Therefore, the roles of men and women were defined in a completely different manner, and understood in a framework of completely different responsibilities and goals. The ads give us insight into what a woman was supposed to be like as opposed to a man. A woman was playing decorative role to the manly men. Various audio-visual and textual tools of the producers helped to define this. Women were there portrayed as beauties, whose main aim is to remain in such way, because that is the way how they can achieve their life goal – to win a man. Women on their own had no value, unless it was justified by man’s approval – in form of actual words, or by getting together with the woman. The way this ad portrays the woman reflects the society which existed at that time.