Image, Sexuality, and Japanese Mass Consumption

Mana Tamaki, OCU

Two women celebrate their friend’s 25th birthday. This is an advertisement. It’s a birthday, but apparently, no one looks happy, and one of her friends suddenly says things that seem to imply something sexual in nature so as to appeal to our desire to consume (buy) some cosmetic product. What she said is that the birthday is no longer a thing to be celebrated, from today on, because “you are not a girl anymore and you won’t get any compliments anymore. You no longer have a competitive characteristic of cuteness.” Despite being a very well-known cosmetics company to young women in Japan, the company was roundly criticized by many woman as soon as the commercial ran.

What was most surprising in the ad was the question, “Do you want to upgrade your cuteness, or just stay as you are now?” Today’s principles of hyper-sexuality in media make aging women question their own natural beauty and the movement of time by presenting them as somehow less desirable and to men. This commercial message is obviously directed at women because it’s selling cosmetic products, but the commercial runs on TV where anyone can watch not only women but also men. Thus, we are all programmed by these ads to believe, falsely, their messages.

Such ads may also negatively affect the confidence of some people as they become more self-conscious about how other people look at them. Although at the end of this commercial, three women are excited to be cuter and appear to be more positive and optimistic, it is easy to develop the complete opposite feeling. The ad deepens the sense of anxiety by saying something deeper about the shallowness of today’s people: they can’t see past the surface appearances.

In looking closely at ads of the past, it is also impossible to see any changing attitudes toward women and their sexuality, so it is hard to see how society has advanced or has become more sophisticated or enlightened. Today, we can easily see specific images of stereotypical beauty or style constructed for women to follow in society, which make women into objects in advertisements, especially when men’s products are being peddled. Women, also, have emotions just as men do. We do not exist only as objects to arouse men into buying something. Ads like these contribute to the negative impressions that men have of women. Neither women nor men should stand for these distorted images communicated to us for consumption in mass media.