Culture Jam
Note: the images have been converted into pdf links just so it can be viewed more clearly since the fonts are very small.
Analysis of the original ad:
The above photo features an advertisement produced by the brand, Alcoa Aluminum, back in the 1950s. The purpose of this ad was to promote their new HyTop bottle cap. Generally speaking, the purpose of any advertisement is to grab the attention of consumers and to persuade them to invest in their products. Needless to say, this ad in particular certainly grabbed people’s attention, but not necessarily in the way the company was hoping for. There are several aspects about this ad that has turned it into a symbol of sexism. To start off with the obvious, the tagline, “You mean a woman can open it?”, is enough of an attention grabber. It reinforces the idea of social stereotype which implies that women are not strong enough to carry out “difficult” tasks as well as men. Moreover, as if the tagline was not sexist enough, it seemed as though the people of Alcoa Aluminum were directly addressing the women as they state, “Easily — without a knife blade, a bottle opener, or even a husband!”, to explain how easy to use this bottle cap is. This sentence alone is particularly demeaning for women as it portrays them to be weak, dependant on men, and basically useless. Furthermore, the way the woman in the ad is presented physically is worth discussing. To me, the way the company has portrayed this woman shows their unrealistic image of women’s appearances – with perfectly coiffed hair, perfect skin, perfect looking nails and the perfect red lipstick. An unrealistic image of perfection. It is important to stress on the fact that this ad came out in the 1950s, a time where gender stereotypes were vividly present. As Barker and Ellsworth (2011) argue, “Women in the 1950s served as subjects, and often passive objects…Such representations were fraught with tension concerning changes in women’s public, intellectual and sexual roles.” (p. 970). Unfortunately, although we are now living in an era where we are starting to see such narrow-minded perception of women diminish, it is still present among us. This is why, it is extremely important for such advertisements to be deconstructed and portrayed in a better way.
In my jammed version of the Alcoa Aluminum ad, I have made three important alterations. The goal behind this was to tackle the gender stereotype and misrepresentation of women that was portrayed in the original ad. Firstly, I thought it was important to remove “woman” in the obvious sexist tagline, “You mean a woman can open it?” and change it into, “You mean EVERYONE can open it?”. The reason behind this alteration is to not segragate and represent women as the sole category of human beings who have trouble opening a bottle. By capitalizing the word “everyone”, I wanted to get the message across, which is that this product will be effective for both women and men equally, and not just women alone. Furthermore, I believed it was important to take out the outrageously sexist component “or even a husband” from the sentence, “Easily — without a knife blade, a bottle opener, or even a husband!”. By removing this bit, it is not only removing the focus of women as the target of this ad, but it is also taking out the idea that women are dependant on men. Furthermore, in the drive to promote more equality, I have included a picture of a surprised looking man, in order to not place the woman as the sole focus of the ad. It helps to represent the message behind the new and improved tagline, “You mean EVERYONE can open it?”. Moreover, in this way, by looking at this advertisement, the consumers are not left to wonder why there is only a picture of a woman and not that of a man also. These three alterations, although small, have helped to take down a sexist and stereotypical ad and turn it into a casual ad produced by Alcoa Aluminum, in the hopes to sell their “safe-sealing bottle cap”.
References:
BARKER, J. L., & ELLSWORTH, K. (2011). Introduction: Women inventing the 1950s.Women’s Studies, 40(8), 969-973.
Website where I found the original version of the ad: https://www.girlscantwhat.com/friday-funny-you-mean-a-woman-can-open-it/