The blog that I am writing today
is about advertising and interpellation. For those of you who don’t know what
interpellation is, it is basically “a process in which we internalize
ideologies as a response to being hailed or addressed”. The ad I chose to
analyze was a Tommy Hilfiger ad that I saw in a magazine. The ad shows three
white girls who seem to be college students living the college lifestyle
because they are outside, on campus, carrying books and looking studious. The
girls are all dressed pretty similar, wearing clothes from Tommy Hilfiger
(obviously). One girl is wearing a Graduation cap on her head, two of the girls
are carrying books in their hands, one has a bike and they are all wearing
designer sunglasses, scarves, fancy shoes, knee high socks, big coats and
pullovers. They all look really preppy.
This ad is showing us that we can
look stylish like these women if we buy clothing from Tommy Hilfiger. They look
dressed for success. You can tell that this ad is aimed at teenagers because
the women in the ad look about 20 and they are living the college life, which
would make them between 18-22 years old.
This ad is not successful at
representing norms, values and beliefs because we normally don’t tend to dress
that way when going to school, unless you are very wealthy. I’m not saying that
nobody dresses like that at university but from what I’ve seen, the majority of
us dress pretty casual. When at university or college, our values should be
more focused on education and not on our clothing choices.
Even though this ad is not successful
at representing norms (in my opinion), it still has the power to present
ideologies to us that can change the way we think. We might not dress like that
right now, but we might want to because these girls look so cool in their Tommy
Hilfiger clothes. “On the other hand, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
produced numerous academic and theoretical perspectives that show the opposite-
that individuals are not in control of their own destinies that we are subject
to forces beyond our individual, conscious control”. Ads that we see address
their target audience and basically give you ideologies and values that they
want you to have, so individuals are not really in control because their
ideologies are presented for them.
“We live in a culture that stresses
individuality, encourages us to believe that every person has unique qualities,
and puts forward the view that we have control over who we are, what we do, and
how others see us, but this view is questionable”. The fact that these women
are all dressed pretty similar shows no individuality and the fact that they
want us all to buy these clothes shows that they aren’t encouraging
individuality at all. They want us to be the same or be different but then
encourage others to be like us because if we are all the same, then we are all
going to buy the same things. We are all going to want what everyone has. The
media makes it seem like standing out is bad because it means being an outcast.
This view is definitely questionable.
O'Shaughnessy, Michael, and Jane Megan. Stadler. Media and Society.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012. Print. Pg. 185 and pg. 189.
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