Slaves are Cute!

And speaking of the commercialization of desire (see yesterday's post) I once went to an exhibit that by excerpting words and images from 100 years’ worth of ads sought to teach us ladies about both 'the women we have been and the women we have wished to be' – all according to those who claim to sense our deepest yearnings.What they 'sensed' 100 years ago? That, still denied the right to vote, women  yearned to be heard: A Kellogg’s ad of the period shows a young matron saying to her grocer, “Excuse ME! I know what I want and I want what I asked for: Toasted Corn Flakes! Good day!”  (The poor guy probably offered her oatmeal.)By the ‘20s though, advertisers had begun portraying  women as much more alive to the various energies crackling around them. As art critic John Berger said,  'Men look at women and women watch themselves being looked at.' In other words women can be  urged to see themselves as others see them -  and from this one notion sprang a million ads.Witness the one for hairdryers, showing a woman in curlers. “You could have been so nice to come home to." Or the one reading, “Often a bridesmaid but never a bride” ad, which caused sales of Listerine to jump 4000%. Or the cruel little Coty ad that said, “Want him to be more of a man? Try being more of a woman.”In the ‘40s, ads urged the ladies to keep the wartime economy pumped by what they called “patriotic shopping.” Then, when Johnny came marching home and they were fired from their wartime jobs “the feminine mystique” sent them all back to the kitchen where nothin’ said lovin’ like something from the oven.Later came the 60s with its many freedoms, including reproductive freedom. At this point in an effort to seem swingy and  'mod', copywriters went in for sass replete with double meanings as in Clairol’s “Does she or doesn’t she?  Then with the women’s movement well established, advertisers tried appealing to women’s sense of themselves as strong and smart, ushering in today’s cruel framing of males as clueless dopes which is still where we are today.It's terrible to be patronized the way the ladies in these two ads are. what is it with humans that they have to have people to look down on? It makes me almost yearn to be part of teh great democracy of dogs.