Ads protect us from ourselves?

Often advertisements sell us on the idea that we need their product to undo what we have done.  In order to bend to the media’s view of how women should be, we abuse our bodies and in this specific case our hair.  We spend hours crimping, straightening, and dying our hair to appease what the media has convinced us is beautiful.  And then they turn around and sell us something to undo what we have done.  It is a vicious cycle that perpetuates itself.  This intern makes women feel inadequate in a lot of ways.  When we need products to fix ourselves, this reinforces the concept that we are insufficient to begin with.

The target audience for these ads is often women who are discontented with themselves initially. “It might be those women and girls most invested in or dissatisfied with their appearance who seek out particular media content, and so might buy and read more fashion magazines” (Tiggemann and Mcgill 24).  These media outlets portray women with no visible flaws including perfect hair.  This depicts the notion that in order to be that beautiful, we have to do exactly what they are doing and use the product they are representing.  The supposed end result makes us think that we will be transformed in to the pretty women we saw in the advertisement.

This thinking also perpetuates the idea they we can abuse ourselves in pursuit of this beauty.  In one commercial by Dove, the add states that you can keep abusing your hair because Dove will take care of the damage you have caused.  This opens a can of worms containing eating disorders and other forms of self punishment.  This idea that we can create messes of ourselves knowing that someone else will clean it up is a dangerous game to play.