International Advertising and the Use of the Sex Appeal: Acceptance ...

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Chinese models in ads express shyness and subordination through thenbodylanguage and are often portrayed in a childish way, made to act like litdegirls (Johansson, 1999, pg. 379).In comparison, Caucasian women are notportrayed as subordinate.They hold their bodies erect and their heads high.They look powerful, self-confident, and satisfied with themselves.To sum up,ads with Caucasian and Asian women, respectively, present two contradictorysets of female images: the Asian women are made subordinate and childish andthe Caucasian women take on certain 'masculine' qualities.Here women aredoing things with men.Portraying women together with men is rare in ads withAsian models but more common in ads with Caucasian women (Johansson,1999, pg. 380).Sex appeals are used in Chinese advertising.For example, a water heaterad shows a Caucasian woman wearing only a short, translucent top, apparendyripped to pieces.Taken from the back in semi-profile, the picture leaves hernaked buttocks almost fully revealed.Just in front of her, a strong jet of watercomes flushing up from the ground.The woman's head hangs back as if ingreat passion, while her eyes are closed and her mouth wide open.The captionprinted above the woman reads 'With Qianfeng ("vanguard", the brand name)in the house there is happiness' (jia you qianfeng le zai qizhong) (Johansson,1999, pg. 381).When young Chinese women were asked why so many ads had Caucasianwomen in them, the response was they are beautiful.Chinese women felt that
Caucasian women are sexier than them.They explained that they think longago Chinese women had an inner beauty no one could match, but now whitewomen "have all the charms of sex and love" (Johansson, 1999, pg. 381)."TheWestern female body is made into a stereotype of strength, sexuality, andpromiscuity that can be consumed and cannibalized without any fear of losingbelief in the traditional virtues of Chinese women" (Johansson, 1999, pg. 382).Effects of the Sex Appeals in Current Chinese AdvertisingEven with China's patriarchal tradition, the notion of gender equalitypromoted by the Chinese Communist Party was put to the test in cooperationwith the extensive changes and changing conceptions of the role of mass media(Glasser, 1997, pg. 87).Gender equality in China is still a work in progress.Gender ideology socializes women to assume a subject position that makesthem oblivious to the fact that they are exploited as sex objects or cheap labor(Glasser, 1997, pg. 87).This raises heat to the questions: are media molders ofsocial structure or reflections of it, and are media agents of social change orreinforcers of the status quo (Glasser, 1997, pg. 85)?American theorists challenge the notion that the media are passivereflectors of society.They point out "the active role media and the mediaproducers play in the creation and recreation of the social roles of women"(Glasser, 1997, pg. 87).Symbolic representations are made of American19
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International Advertising and the Use of the Sex Appeal: Acceptance ...

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