Ideological formations

The ultimate effect of frequent broadcasting of advertisements that cater to male gaze is in forming ideology in society. Media images, in today’s world of mass communication, do have powerful impact in the psychology of audience. This was the very reason why the scholars like Theodor Adorno and other hard-boiled Marxist like Antonio Gramski rebuked the debilitating effect of media in capitalism. However, here the concern is on how the commercials in mass media lead to ideological formations rather than on its positive and negative effects. Helen Malson in her The Thin Women describes how the images of women in magazines contribute to discursive production of gender: One discourse that both converses and diverges from romantic discourse in its construction of the thin body is a ‘be more beautiful’ discourse promulgated in women’s magazines, where physical beauty is frequently presented less as an aspirational ideal, more as a holly commandment. In these texts beauty figures as a state of salvation achieved through ritualistically following the “step by step” instructions, the day-to-day diets for beatification. (111) In some advertisements, though there seem to be apparent absence of men, the male gaze remains always active and operating. In the advertisements like that of Dabur Honey, the males are seen to be directly taking part in displaying the effect of male gaze. At such cases the gaze of the male character within the advertisement is identical to that of the outside male audience. The male audiences of such advertisements tend to identify themselves with the male protagonist within the ad. But in the advertisements like Citrus Lime and Rite Juice, male characters are absent yet they are supposed to be watching the women’s

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bsence of men from this discourse does not, however, necessarily signify their lack of importance here. It may be that being heterosexually active is so culturally important that it goes without saying that woman’s beautifications is for men. Nevertheless, the apparent absence of men from this discourse does also emphasize the extent to which physical appearance constitutes an integral part of femininity so that narcissism becomes the explicit norm in the pages of women’s magazines. Thus, whilst feminine beauty remains equated with thinness, the pursuit of this ‘ideal’ is presented as a form of selfcare rather than a means of attracting a man. Whilst within romantic discourse the thin/anorexic body signifies a traditionally heterosexual femininity, within this ‘be more beautiful’ discourse it signifies a more self-possessed woman who is beautiful ‘for herself’ rather than for another. This latter ‘reading’ of the thin female body cannot entirely escape patriarchally imposed meanings, but it does suggest the possibility that body sustains a variety of meanings, not all of which conform to patriarchally defined ideals of ‘femininity’. The disciplinary power of discourse about the body is produced thorough the entanglement of these different discourses through which the multiple meanings of fat or thin bodies continually slip. And it is within this entanglement and slipping of significations of ‘the body’ and ‘the women’ that alternative and often contradictory meanings are consolidated. (Malson 112)

Commercials’ effect of ideological formations is in society is also backed up by our television culture. For instance, take again the television as a “medium”. Since it is a medium, it is also a message. Marshall MacLuhan in his The Medium is the Message says that medium is itself a message because it always affects and distorts the message it conveys. In today’s television culture, we watch TV everyday and it has become a part of our day-to-day life. Every time we watch thousands of images flickering in the screen. In most of the houses, television set is turned on at seven in the morning and left on all day. At this, the audience never becomes aware how the images of the television control them - consciously or unconsciously. The frequent broadcasting of same type of commercials gradually forms and nurtures desired or intended ideologies. Mother becomes a “mass women”, and father becomes a “mass man” and children “mass children”, where “mass woman” watches the television while she is at home, and “mass children” watch it when they return from school. The whole family views it for a few hours in the evening. (Van Doren 372).

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