Draft 2 - Yoplait Commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdRLYqP7ZoM

There are many stereotypes and images that commercials use to make consumers feel insecure in order to persuade buyers to buy their product. In many commercials directed toward women, women are made to feel insecure by a representation of themselves through the male gaze.

In popular media, attractive women are represented as skinny. Popular culture constantly enforces the idea that women that are not skinny can not attractive. One example of pop media reinforcing that idea is through the shocking, attention demanding headlines of magazines that customers see when waiting in line for checkout in grocery stores. It is common to see titles detailing different celebrities during their to the beach and remarking on how their beach body looks, as well as commenting about how each celebrity has either lost or gain weight. In addition, magazines constantly use headlines to advertise different diet pills or diet plans that women can use to slim down and look sexy. Commercial advertising that abuses the self esteem of women about weight is almost omnipresent. However, one question to ask is how has this idea that attractive women are skinny become such gospel?

One explanation is that the appearance of the attractive women is decided by what men see as attractive. Advertisers play on the fear that a woman will never be attractive to a man, never become a wife, and raise children, so they advertise products that appear to either directly or indirectly make women more attractive to men. So, even products that are directed toward women and do not directly use the male gaze, convince women to buy their product through their own imagination about how males will view them, and thus advertisers indirectly use the male gaze that is prevalent in popular culture.

This Yoplait commercial is part of the almost omnipresent enforcement of commercials that make women feel bad about their weight as part of their incentive to make consumer buy their product. The commercial begins with a woman on the phone, presumably talking to a female friend, about all of the delicious sugary confectionary that she has been eating for the past couple days. She brags about the apple turnover, Boston Creme pie, white chocolate strawberries, and most importantly, the key lime pie that she has had. Her husband overhears her conversation and starts frantically searching the fridge for the desserts. At the end of the commercial, the women tells her friend that she has even started losing weight, and her husband looks up in confusion. It is clear that he is confused how his wife could possibly eat all of those deserts and not just not gain weight, but actually lose weight.

This Yoplait commercial highlights some representations of women in popular culture. In this commercial, Yoplait bases their commercial around the representation of the weight of attractive women in pop culture. The main idea this commercial presents is that they produce food that women can not only eat without the feeling of guilt that accompanies the indulgence of sugary desserts, but feel confident that they will even lose weight while eating their food! Their declaration is part of the enforcement that women are required to be skinny to be considered attractive.

However, this is too good to be true. During the commercial, there is a very small, barely noticeable white subtitle that remarks “As part of a reduced calorie diet and regular exercise.” Another thing to note is that the woman is in workout clothes, so the viewer will subconsciously associate eating a low-fat diet with exercise to become attractive. As with many weight loss diet plans or diet pills, they come with a catch that women must actually put forth some effort outside of their diet and actually exercise to become fit and in shape and most importantly, attractive and sexy. This commercial is only one of the many manifestations of the women through the male gaze, that women need to be skinny to be attractive.