Tide: Representation

Question 1

Women

Representation

Answer 1

• In the 1950s, while men were being targeted for the post-war boom in America’s car industry, women were the primary market for the technologies and products being developed for the home.
• In advertising for these types of texts, stereotypical representations of domestic perfection, caring for the family and servitude to the ‘man of the house’ became linked to a more modern need for speed, convenience and a better standard of living than the women experienced in the pre-war era.
• The dress code of the advert’s main female character include a stereotypical 1950s hairstyle incorporating waves, curls and rolls made fashionable by contemporary film stars such as Veronica Lake, Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. The fashion for women having shorter hair had a practical catalyst as long hair was hazardous for women working with machinery
  on farms or in factories during the war.
• The headband or scarf worn by the woman also links to the practicalities of dress code for women developed during this time. For this advert, having her hair held back connotes she’s focused on her work, though this is perhaps binary opposed to the full make-up that she’s wearing.

Question 2

Media Language

Answer 2

• Z-line and a rough rule of thirds can be applied to its composition.
• Bright, primary colours connote the positive associations the producers want the audience to make with the product.
• Headings, subheadings and slogans are written in sans-serif font, connoting an informal mode of address.
• This is reinforced with the comic strip style image in the bottom right-hand corner with two women ‘talking’ about the product using informal lexis (“sudsing whizz”).
• The more ‘technical’ details of the product are written in a serif font, connoting the more ‘serious’ or ‘factual’ information that the ‘1, 2, 3’ bullet point list includes.

Question 3

Liesbet Van Zoonen’s feminist theory

Answer 3

• While their role socially and politically may have changed in the proceeding war years, the advert perhaps contradicts Van Zoonen’s theory that the media contribute to social change by representing women in non-traditional roles and using non-sexist language.

Question 4

bell hooks’ feminist theory

Answer 4

• Argues that lighter skinned women are considered more desirable and fit better into the western ideology of beauty, and the advert could be seen to reinforce this by only representing “modern”, white women.

Question 5

Gilroy’s ethnicity and
post-colonial theories

Answer 5

• Media texts reinforce colonial power. Contextually, this power has perhaps been challenged at this moment in American history by the events of WWII.

Question 6

Stuart Hall’s theory of representation

Answer 6

• The images of domesticity (including the two women hanging out the laundry) form part of the “shared conceptual road map” that give meaning to the “world” of the advert.
• Despite its comic strip visual construction, the scenario represented is familiar to the audience as a representation of their own lives.

Question 7

David Gauntlett’s theory of identity

Answer 7

– Women represented in the advert act as role models of domestic perfection that the audience may want to construct their own sense of identity against.

Question 8

Structuralism – Claude Lévi-Strauss

Answer 8

• Lévi-Strauss’ theory, whereby texts are constructed through the use of binary oppositions, and meaning is made by audiences understanding these conflicts.
• In this text, “Tide gets clothes cleaner than any other washday product you can buy!” and “There’s nothing like Procter and Gamble’s Tide”, reinforces the conceptual binary opposition between Tide and its commercial rivals.
• It’s also “unlike soap,” gets laundry “whiter… than any soap or washing product known” and is “truly safe” – all of which connotes that other,
  inferior products do not offer what Tide does.

Question 9

Semiotics – Roland Barthes

Answer 9

• Suspense is created through the enigma of “what women want” (Barthes’ Hermeneutic Code) and emphasised by the tensionbuilding use of multiple exclamation marks (Barthes’ Proairetic Code).
• Barthes’ Semantic Code could be applied to the use of hearts above the main image. The hearts and the woman’s gesture codes have connotations of love and relationships. It’s connoted that this is “what women want” (in addition to clean laundry!).
• Hyperbole and superlatives (“Miracle”, “World’s cleanest wash!”, “World’s whitest wash!”) as well as tripling (“No other…”) are used to oppose the connoted superior cleaning power of Tide to its competitors.

Question 10

Identify two target audiences for the 1955 Tide advert

Answer 10

• Women
• Aspirers

ABC1, White, Mainstreamers

Question 11

Representation of the woman

Central image - general

Answer 11

• The appearance of the woman is idealised and perfect: She has a full face of make-up and her hair is perfectly styled.
• This signifies that perhaps appearances are important for women.
• Audiences believe if they use Tide, they could also be as perfect as the people within the advert.

Question 12

Representation of the Woman

Dress codes

Answer 12

• Her outfit, her hairstyle and the curls with the headscarf reflects what was fashionable in the 1950s.
• There were many famous film stars like Betty Grable and Veronica Lake who had hairstyles like this.
• By having her hair tied up in a headscarf is practical, it stops her hair getting in her face. The illustration of the woman with her hair pulled back is representing women as being more ready to do physical, difficult work so it shows that women are practical and resourceful.

Question 13

Representation of the woman

Codes of expressions

Answer 13

• Her smiling facial expression, paired with her hugging the box, and the symbolic hearts (iconography), signify that she loves Tide, and housework.