Representation Analysis

Axe Bodyspray commercial

 

The Axe bodyspray commercial is an underwhelming view of representation and places a certain gender community to be seen in a negative light. In other words, this commercial over sexualizes women and overgeneralizes exactly what women look like.  The first point I would like to talk about is the harmful view that the Axe commercial is placing on females. As seen in the video, the premise of the commercial is to show a group of "savage" and animalistic women chasing after a man who is spraying the Bodyspray. This clearly makes it seem that all women want is a man and that we are chasing towards them. Notably, this does not include any representation of the LGBTQ+ community and makes women seem like objects. Another point I would like to include is the lack of body representation in this commercial. As we can tell, the video shows women with thin bodies and a "perfect" example of what women are supposed to look like. This can be detrimental towards anyone who has body image issues or a young person growing up, causing psychological harm towards anyone. Additionally, another point is the lack of race/ ethnic representation in the video. Clearly, all the women in the video are white, completely disregarding people of color. The Axe Bodyspray commercial is a great example of a lack of representation in the advertising world and in race/ethnic, gender, sexuality and differing body type communities.

H&M "close the loop" Ad

In the H&M Ad, we can see a completely different and diverse view on representation and instead sheds a positive light on certain communities. First off, we do see more modern 21st century views on many different ideas and narrations of things that may seem like "breaking the rules" in the fashion world. The first community that is seen represented well in this commercial is the gender community, as males can be seen wearing skirts, makeup, etc. which many people may relate to, especially in this day and age. We also can see women dressing up in "men's clothes" and vice verse. This is extremely beneficial towards the gender community, as most of the time, these people are never well represented, such as in the Axe commercial. Not only is the gender community represented, but so is the minority ethnic/ race group, as well as religion. We see many diverse groups of people of color and other race groups. Additionally, the commercial is much more body representative of people, ranging from all body types. This also can be helpful as people may feel more confident in themselves and feel like they are being portrayed well. Finally, the commercial ends showing that we must recycle our clothes, which can be seen as a representation of people who do indeed care about our planet, which should be portraying all of us. The H&M commercial does a very good job of showing a range of diverse groups and communities, which is exactly what the world is like.