Yoplait Commercial

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

In order to persuade buyers to purchase their product, commercials include stereotypical images and ideas from popular culture to make consumers feel insecure. Specifically, commercials make women feel insecure about their weight by representing women through the eyes of men.

This Yoplait commercial is part of the omnipresent enforcement of commercials to make women feel insecure about their weight. The commercial begins with a woman on the phone, presumably talking with a female friend, about all of the delicious sugary confections she has eaten in 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’s eaten. Her husband overhears her conversation and starts frantically searching the fridge for the desserts. During his fruitless search, there is a subtle scene where he pushes aside the stacked cups of Yoplait yogurt in search for the sweet treats. At the end of the commercial, the wife tells her friend that she has even started losing weight, and her husband looks up in confusion. It is clear that he is not only confused about the location of the sweets, but also confused at how his wife could possibly eat all of those desserts and still be able to lose weight.

This commercial highlights some representations of women in popular culture. In popular media, attractive women are represented as skinny, and popular culture constantly enforces the idea that women who are not skinny are not attractive. One example is the shocking, attention

demanding headlines of magazines that customers see when waiting in line to checkout in grocery stores. It is common to see cover pages and headlines detailing different celebrities during their trip 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 concerning weight is pervasive 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 pervasive pop culture claim that women are required to be skinny to be considered attractive.

However, one question can be raised: how did the idea that attractive women are skinny become 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. Even products that are advertised directly toward women, and thus do not actively target a male audience, convince women to buy their product through their own imagination about how males will perceive them. It is in this fashion that advertisers indirectly use the ever-prevalent male gaze as an incentive to coerce consumers to buy their product. This Yoplait commercial uses this kind of marketing plan to sell its product. The intended viewer is quite obviously expected to be female, yet it does not seem necessary to mention the subject of weight lost. Yoplait wants women to imagine themselves skinny and attractive to men. The implicit understanding that the woman and the man in commercial are husband and wife is their evidence that use of their product attracts men. The male gaze has not only affected the ad, but also reinforced the male gaze upon the audience as well.

Upon closer inspection, Yoplait’s claim of eating their yogurt causes weight loss is too good to be true. During the commercial, there are very small, barely noticeable white subtitles that remark “As part of a reduced calorie diet and regular exercise.” As with many weight loss diet plans or diet pills, they come with a catch. They articulate that women must actually put forth some effort outside of their diet and actually exercise to become fit and in shape, and most importantly, become attractive and sexy. This commercial is only one of the many manifestations of the women through the male gaze; in popular culture and media, women need to be skinny to be attractive.

Citations:

Yoplait Yogurt “Commercial.” Youtube. 14 September 2011: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdRLYqP7ZoM>

Yoplait Yogurt "Website." Food Service Direct. 20 September 2011: <http://www.foodservicedirect.com/productimages/OTR395145S.jpg>

Cover Page. Star 13 July 2009: Print.