"Women as objects to be surveyed."

Since the first class this semester, we have discussed many things. We have mainly discussed how to pick apart an advertisement and see how the advertiser may negatively stereotype and portray a certain gender, ethnicity, race, or even an economic class. Reading works by Anandi Ramamurthy and looking at her details we see how these advertisers work. Looking at the textbook we learn to observe the world around us and see the stereotypes all over. The piece “Never Just Pictures” by Susan Bordo helps to prove some of Ramamurthy’s ideas.
Ramamurthy talks about how women are constantly being surveyed. The photographer surveys their subject and decides what is photographic. The consumers survey the women in the ad and try to become the woman in the photograph no matter how the woman is portrayed. Ramamurthy mentions how advertisers are trying to constantly create an illusion of desire even if the image is “cut-up” similar to a Picasso painting.
Susan Bordo notes in her piece that it is beautiful to look messed up, similar to what Ramamurthy mentions about the Picasso. Most of the women shown in ads today are dead looking or “heroin chic”. She questions why it is beautiful to look as if your arms are dislocated and your eyes a popping out of their sockets. Could it possibly be that the advertisers are telling us is OK to be depressed and that it’s a beautiful thing? This just tells all of America “Hey! It’s OK to have an eating disorder!” Bordo goes on to analyze these points and some of them confirm Ramamurthy’s thoughts on how women are portrayed in ads. For example, Ramamurthy tells us about “the increasing dominance of the fashion photographer” just like Bordo tells us how the dead models have a power over American youth’s minds.
The fact that advertisers have such power over the public is scary. Ramamurthy proves that all advertising does is trick us into thinking things, and Bordo gives us examples of how advertisers do this.