Reebok and Raunch Culture Claim Many Victims

"I first noticed it several years ago. I would turn on the television and find strippers in pasties explaining how best to lap dance a man to orgasm. I would flip the channel and see babes in tight, tiny uniforms bouncing up and down on trampolines" (Levy, 1). The thing that Levy noticed some time ago was the newly rising raunch culture that has been affecting today's society. In her book, Female Chauvinist Pigs, Levy explains many issues that are brought about by this raunch culture and the negative ways in which it affects the female population.
"If Male Chauvinist Pigs were men who regarded women as pieces of meat, we would outdo them and be Female Chauvinist Pigs: women who make sex objects out of other women and ourselves" (Levy, 4). For my media project I chose to focus on a set of commercials that do just that. These commercials objectify women's bodies by using sex appeal to sell a product. They cause women to want to perfect themselves in order to rise above the others. These commercials don't advertise for risque movies, lingerie, or any other product that one would expect needed sex appeal to sell. These commercials advertise for Reebok. Yes, the use of sex appeal to sell shoes.



The woman in this commercial could be modeling the ugliest pair of shoes in the world and Reebok would probably still have billions of sales world wide. The sex appeal that is used throughout this commercial is one of the major factors for why women are rushing to purchase these wonderful shoes. As if the shot in the beginning of the woman in only a bra and underwear was not enough, the majority of this commercial is spent viewing the woman's breasts from different angles. While this visual is going on, the audio is of the two breasts talking about how they are being overshadowed by the appearance of the woman's butt. A few risque camera shots later and the scene is fading out with an image of the so called, "perfect butt" in view.
To begin with, it is very unlikely that men would ever buy these shoes, since they are made for women. But it is also very unlikely that men would change the channel when this commercial came on because after all, who wouldn't want to stare at a half naked woman being shot from different provocative angles for thirty seconds? The use of sex appeal in this commercial is almost troubling when you think about it, because how many other shoe commercials use half naked women as their models?



One could argue, why not? Why is it wrong for the women in this commercial to be showing off the bodies that they have worked hard to get ? Why is it wrong for women to want to obtain the sexy body that they see parading around in these ultra effective body shaping shoes? After buying these shoes women will achieve that perfect body, the confidence to show it off, and will eventually feel empowered. Isn't that what feminism is, being able to control the rights to your own body and show it off at your own digression? Wrong. I couldn't agree more when Levy states, " 'Raunchy' and 'liberated' are not synonyms. It is worth asking ourselves if this bawdy world of boobs and gams we have resurrected reflects how far we've come, or how far we have left to go" (Levy,5).