The Original Ad
The above photo is an advertisement by PETA from 2012 featuring model and socialite Joanna Krupa (Heller), that I’ve chosen for my assignment. In my opinion, there is a lot wrong with the pictured ad. PETA is a well-known non-profit animal rights organization that has released ads like this numerous times over the years (PETA). First of all, this advertisement encapsulates the old adage of “sex sells” completely, what does a nearly naked woman with exaggerated pubic hair have to do with animal cruelty? The audience is looking at a blonde, blue-eyed, scantily clad, skinny, white woman use her stereotypical good looks and physicality to take a stand against animal endangerment. After all, society has conditioned us that if you’re conventionally attractive and white then what you have to say has value. Furthermore, this advertisement is perpetuating the idea that something natural like pubic hair is unattractive and undesirable; animal fur should be left alone while human female “fur” must be done away with, ironically. In a bid to draw awareness to animal cruelty PETA utilizes body-shaming, misogyny, and sexism to exploit women to emphasize their point. PETA has a big problem with animals being used as meat for consumption, but no problem with women being likened to one and the same. In addition, it is usually only white women that are attractive enough to garner enough attention for the cause in the first place. A nonprofit organization is capitalizing on the degradation of women in protest of the degradation of animals.
The Jammed Ad
The goal of my jammed ad was to highlight the irony of the original; protesting attacks on animals for their fur by attacking women over theirs. Just like an animal has been treated like a commodity based on the appeal of their fur, skin, and body parts, so too have women been reduced to nothing but their physical attractiveness and their ability to reproduce. The female form has been mutilated and manipulated into an unreachable ideal sold to women and girls everywhere, epitomized here by a heavily photoshopped model that bears no natural and normal “flaws” whatsoever. Females of all ages have been taught by the media and by marketing agencies that they too can be beautiful and attractive if only they could be skinnier, hairless, lighter skinned, taller, richer, curvier, the list goes on with no end in sight. Through images like the original PETA ad, women are being taught that their only value resides in whether or not others (mostly men) think they are attractive; that the only way to stand up for something and be heard is to do so by utilizing your good looks and body. Men are being fed the idea that women are nothing more than their bodies and faces, and that said bodies and faces need to meet a certain standard that is impossible to achieve. I am not entirely sure who the original ad was aimed at more: women because it is alluding to specific grooming practices and garment accessories? Or men because Ms. Krupa is wearing nothing but a lace pair of panties? My first caption reads “Animals should keep their fur, women should not because its unattractive” and my second captions reads “why eat animals when you can treat women like meat instead?”, both are meant to be satirical. My alternations aspired to invoke the hypocrisy blatantly displayed by the original advertisement.
Works Cited:
“About PETA.” PETA. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, n.d. Web. 23 June 2017. <https://www.peta.org/about-peta/>.
Heller, Corinne. “Joanna Krupa Gets Naked for PETA Again, for Anti-SeaWorld Ad—Check Out a NSFW Photo and Video!” E! News. E! News, 17 Mar. 2016. Web. 24 June 2017. <http://www.eonline.com/ca/news/681784/joanna-krupa-gets-naked-for-peta-again-for-anti-seaworld-ad-check-out-a-nsfw-photo-and-video>.