Noodles, Females and Objectification

Masayuki Chinen, OCU

Nisshin Food Products television commercials have attracted the attention of many people, especially men, in its use of sexuality as a method of stimulating a sense of hunger in viewers. One ad in particular expresses man’s sexual desire toward women. It also reflects the general desire of women to maintain a beautiful appearance and slender body.

Nisshin is a well-known food company, especially for its Cup Noodle brand. In 2010, Nisshin marketed a new line known as Cup Noodle Light. Viewers may notice immediately what is special about this product from its name. Obviously, this product is supposed to contain less calories than other similar products while it also contains dietary fiber.

Nisshin Food Products, 2012

When I heard the name of this product, I thought the company was mainly targeting female customers. However, the commercial presents also another perspective from what I had first imagined. The advertisement features a beautiful woman who appears essentially naked. She framed by the camera from the low waistline up, and her exposed skin is painted in the pattern of Cup Noodle Light. Her slender appearance and beauty illustrate the power of the visual and what could possibly be in store for customers who eat this product. So, the TV advertisement strives to elicit the general female desire to be slender and to be beautiful.

The message, though, is meant not only for women but for men with its portrayal of the woman. It is appealing to male customers because it presents the woman in an almost erotic pose half naked, exposed and welcoming, which motivate the male sexual drive. When male customers choose this brand of noodle, the images presented in the advertisement serve to appeal to the emotions connections that men feel toward women. These connections are also linked to the product, Cup Noodle Light.

While recent women’s equal rights movements challenging the unfair treatment and discrimination of women have had some success in Japanese society, we still need to go further in improving equality and respecting the dignity of women. Unfortunately, male chauvinism still appears to exist in societies across the globe where women are objectified in the interest of marketing products.

In Japan, the woman who is generally slender and who has wider eyes than the norm has come to be more visually appealing, more valuable, and more marketable to manufacturers. It seems every condition of feminine beauty is manufactured today by a man’s sense of value. Many women strive to be more slender by dieting and sometimes the result is excess dieting, which leads to very serious emotional and psychological problems. These unrealistic concepts about feminine beauty appear to be a leading cause of anorexia.

Nisshin Cup Noodle also emphasizes the calorie and dietary fiber, which is related directly the slender body image. If such extreme emphasis continues to be placed on sexual fantasy in advertising, we really need to step back from the media presented on TV and ask about the real value of this fantasy and its effects on women.

Mr. Magic Mushroom

Maki Sunagawa, OCU

When you think of mushrooms, especially the average garden variety, you may not immediately visualize sex. A Japanese TV commercial produced by the advertisers of a mushroom company, Hokuto, went completely beyond our imagination. To many ordinary women, like me, the ad is rather degrading.

Hokuto ad, 2013

The characters featured in this short commercial are a middle-aged housewife performed by Sawa Suzuki and a handsome spirit of mushrooms with mushroom earrings performed by Jun Kaname. This kind of ad has been reproduced a number of times in various ways by the same agency, and all of the TV spots feature characters such as housewives in what males tend to think are typical female settings such as the kitchen, the living room couch, in front of the door at some average apartment, or some random aisle in a vast supermarket.

In this ad, every time she is alone, the spirit of the mushroom suddenly appears out of nowhere and whispers right behind her. The mushroom lecture he gives is called “Kin-katsu,” which can be translated as “fungi activity.” He presses his mushroom-decorated body against hers and asks which variety she prefers – “a regular mushroom” or “a majestic mushroom.” At the end of each advertisement, the erotic apparition that the supposed desperate housewife envisaged in the middle of the day turned out to be merely a daydream.

Beyond the barnyard aspect of sensuality the ad promotes, the ad also does a splendid job in expressing the erotic images that men seem to harbor toward the humble mushroom. Maybe it is good that children are not able to grasp the sexual innuendo that is clearly implied. The lasting image left in the minds of the audience that sees the ad is clear, if not clever, despite the indirect underlying message.

The reason why the ad merits discussion is its offensiveness. I found it demeaning and I presume most women will also conclude the same, as the ad portrays another stereotype. The housewife and the handsome young man suggest to viewers that all Japanese middle-aged women are bored stiff doing daily chores at home and are yet sexually frustrated, a feeling that could be treated by a man with a majestic mushroom.

This is not the only commercial regarding sex we can witness recently. Commercials that feature men and women assuming stereotypical gender roles where males earn the money and the women do the housework have appeared in various media in many countries. Recent ads appear to turn to sexuality increasingly more often into spectacle. The subtle level of sexual implication in ads may have been part of a long global tradition; however, the methods that marketers are now using are becoming more and more indecent. Therefore, I think it is necessary to point out that some of these ads are inappropriate, even for adults who claim to honor all people as equals.