It was a lazy Friday afternoon, and I was enthusiastically flipping through my newly delivered issue of Seventeen magazine. Right after reading a column about how to score bargains on celebrity styles, I turned the page. Suddenly (and not so willingly) my eyes met an image of a scantily clad Jennifer Lopez, and under it bottle of perfume. I glanced at the ad for a few seconds, pondering how typical a representation it was: bare famous woman, provocative pose, windswept hair. An image filled with the characteristic visual stimuli included when men are the ones looking.

Wait. Pause. Rewind. This perfume is a woman’s product. This ad is in a woman’s magazine. Why would advertisers of this product utilize female objectification in marketing? Obviously, the method works, so what do we as young women see so appealing about these images that lead us toward buying these products?

To answer this question, we must begin by identifying exactly what aspects of this image make it appeal to the “male gaze.” According to Andi Ziesler in her book Feminism and Pop Culture, the male gaze is “the idea that when we look at images in art or on screen, we’re seeing them as a man might—even if we are women—because those images are constructed to be seen by men” (Zeisler 7). In this particular advertisement, Jennifer Lopez’s pose and expression give off a vibe the vulnerability historically associated with women. Her body is recoiled and turned away from the viewer and her feet hang off the hammock. This the characteristic posture of a child after he or she wakes up from a nap, connecting her powerlessness to childishness. Further emphasizing the actress’s childishness is the fact she is sitting in a hammock, since the image of swinging evokes a mood of lightheartedness and naiveté. In addition, Lopez’s eyes glance up toward the viewer, rather than directly forward or down. This feature emphasizes that she is a small, defenseless subordinate to the viewer, who is likely a male gazing down upon her. Her messy hair swoops over her eyes and partially covers her half-open mouth, an element that connotes a naive oral fixation and even the idea that her inferior role makes it acceptable for her face to be somewhat blocked from the audience. All in all, Jennifer Lopez is innocent woman who cannot stand on her own two feet (both literally and figuratively) and needs to be cared for.

Ironically, many of the elements that invoke childishness and defenselessness in Lopez bring about the very different idea of the natural wildness within her. By far the most significant feature that contributes to this emotion is the tropical forest background of the scene. This setting, combined with the model’s bare, glowing skin facing toward the viewer and her scanty clothing, display Lopez as sexually available. Her posture is inviting,

Let’s end this analysis with an interesting analogy. Among the most celebrated artists of the nineteenth century was Jean Honore Fragonard, founder of the Rococo movement in French painting. Rococo art was, in laymen’s terms, “frilly-foofoo.” For example Fragonard’s The Swing is a painting with bright, heavy figures, and a swirly composition. Furthermore, the content is remnicient of culture of the time period, which included the earliest rebellious girls. Modern women’s perfume advertisements, like the one explained here, are a prime example of “low art” in modern society. These advertisments showcase women as objects to be looked at, and their presence in the ad has very little, if anything, to do with the product being marketed. Shockingly, Fragonard’s masterpieces and racy magazine photos of Jennifer Lopez have one major factor in common: their crude, typically lskfjasdf depictions of females.

The bottom line: society and, consequently, the advertising industry have not ceased with releasing their continuous displays that objectify women, but instead stretch their powers even further. Ultimately, will women’s perfume advertisements and popular culture items with similar, nonsensical and female-degrading connotations be the art that our generation is remembered by one hundred years from now?