IMS 103 Assignment Blog

I chose 4 box covers from video games and 1 Victoria’s Secret ad that present an exaggerated ideal of how women should look. Each girl pictured has a terrific body, big breasts (especially Lara Croft), long hair, and tan skin. The games I picked, Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball, Dead or Alive 4, Final Fantasy X-2, and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, are popular with males. Victoria’s Secret catalogs are popular with male adolescents who can’t buy Playboy or Maxim.

What expectations regulating people’s behavior or ideas informing their tastes do these ads convey?

I think the game ads portray women as sexual objects – they are designed to be sexy and appealing to men, to entice males into buying the game. The Victoria’s Secret ad is also geared towards males, to encourage them to buy sexy lingerie for their girlfriends/wives. These ads aren’t made to appeal to women, because traditionally, women aren’t the ones buying these types of items. Advertising like these ads show what advertisers think of male and female buying habits.

Do these expectations or ideas affect people’s sense of self – that is, of who they are?

I believe that images like these can affect a woman’s sense of self, because they’re a continual reminder of what many males think is sexy. An interesting question here is to wonder if males would find images of scantily clad women sexy if such images weren’t marketed to them as something that a guy should see as sexy. I’ve heard of homosexual males saying that they felt odd when growing up, because they didn’t find images like these sexy, when they were told by media/advertising that they should.