GRSJ 300 Culture Jam
When an ad directly tells a consumer, more specifically a woman, what to do with their body there is going to be a storm of opinions. Whole Foods attempted to do this lightly by posing their consumers with a theoretical situation. “Treat your body like it belongs to someone you love” printed over a picture of a woman could be simply interpreted as a caring and loving gesture. If your loved one was in your body you would want to treat it well because you love that person and care about their well being. In this situation the consumer would likely eat well and maintain a healthy and positive lifestyle to provide their loved one with the best body they could have. Perfectly innocent, genuinely a nice thought, if interpreted this way; however, when the words “body”, “belongs”, and even further a picture of a woman are all put together, it can be seen very differently.
Possession of anyone in any form, and again even more so a woman, is completely absurd. This ad could be read as a direction to the consumer to treat their body well, by eating healthy from Whole Foods, because someone else owns their body. It could be compared to “Treat your car like it belongs to your mom.” The body in the ad, in this case a woman, is being objectified and then possessed. The consumer should be doing this for the other person and does not already have their own motives.
https://artsnmaths.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/whole-foods-body-ownership.jpg
“Treat your body because it belongs to someone you love” reveals the way this ad can be interpreted negatively. It emphasizes that the reason why people should take care of their body is because it is owned by someone else. I have also replaced the background image to show the “someone you love” figure, or in the negative case the possessor figure. In the picture I have used it shows a woman with a man. I chose this because the original ad featured the woman giving her body to someone else; however, any gender could be used for this ad and the possession aspect would still be just as repulsive.
Something along the lines of “Treat your body like it belongs to you” would have promoted self-love and self-awareness instead. It makes perfect sense for a health food store to advertise a healthy lifestyle, but it should be done in a way that leaves the reason to do so to the customer. My alternative quote would still convey the company’s main goal – eat our healthy food – but it no longer forces a reason onto the consumer to do this. The customer should be striving to have a nutritious diet because of the motivators they have as an individual. These could be the mental, emotional, or physical benefits either internally, for the consumer themselves, or externally, for the people in the consumer’s life.
