DECONSTRUCTING AN ADVERTISEMENT: Does Your Husband Look Younger Than You Do?

In a 1950s Cosmetic ad, by Dorothy Gray Salon titled, “Does Your Husband Look Younger than You Do?” describes five adjectives about the ad: jealousy, ashamed, abandoned, helpless, and scared. In this black and white ad a white women is shown looking behind her shoulders with her hands on her mouth. Behind her is a couple who seem to be happy, dressed in elegant clothing and enjoying each other’s company. The lonely women’s face is enlarged and prominent in the ad to show her feelings towards aging is a huge issue for her. Her facial expressions show that she’s sad and jealous that she doesn’t look younger than her husband. It’s as if she thinks if she was to look younger than her marriage would be happier. The cameras angle is at eye-level and a full face shot. The couple behind the women appears smaller because the view is from the corner of her eyes, and is angled slightly higher than the women. In addition the camera is angled over the shoulder to represent the taught behind an aging women’s mind of wanting to appear younger. The lighting used in this 1951 ad is artificial. To highlight the younger looking women in the back to stand out and for the women who feels older in the front as dimmed. The purpose of the highlighting is to make the women in the back superior over the aging women.
At the bottom of the ad, a couple of paragraph explains a solution to look younger than your husband. The solution is to buy and apply Cellogen Crème to the skin than the appearance of aging will disappear. The products being sold are Cellogen Cream, Cellogen Lotion, and Hormone Hand Cream. Not only products for your face but also for your elbow, neck, and hands. In result, you will experience a happier life and a happy marriage. Even has a paragraph with a scientific explanation about why the products work. Adding the scientific explanation in the ad is a winner, it adds trust and comfort into the product. All of the text in the ad is black and in the same font. However, a few key words and sentence are in bold in the beginning and in the middle to grab attention and keep readers still interested in the advertisement. The audiences targeted for this product are older adults who are in a marriage. The Creams and Lotion would seem appealing for those women who are aging and wanting to look younger. Above all the ad is trying to associate the emotion of aging with its products. It’s the same type of emotion that comes when the body is changing towards the worst. Especially in women, ads that speak upon looks are something women have a tendency to want to explore into bettering ones self-image. Certainty, this tactic of using a sensitive issue for many women did work.
Assumptions in the ad are made about women who look younger have a happier marriage or even a husband. Men prefer younger women, and if you don’t get rid of those wrinkles then you will lose your husband. First, the comparison of the looks of a women and her husband doesn’t justify a happy marriage. In a marriage there are other realistic elements a women has to exceed in not only on her looks. If the ad had a comparison of a woman to other women is in fact realistic. Indeed a competition that isn’t deniable. Secondly, wrinkles are not going to determine if you have a husband or not. Lastly, the assumption about men preferring younger women is realistic. The long term consequences of the ad , is thinking a women’s duty is to try and stay young, make sure she has to stay pretty in order to satisfy a man. I don’t feel this add is socially responsible because they are trying to sell the product and a way for them to make money is to make up assumptions and end it with a solution. But advertisers are oblivious of the messages they are sending, do in fact stick and form the minds of people.
In the closing comments of the video Killing Us Softly 3, Jean Kilbourne states that change will depend upon “an aware, active, educated public that thinks for itself primarily as citizens rather than primarily as consumers.” To think as a citizen is to have an identity for both being and doing. To be a consumer is to feed on goods and services. For instance, changing your looks to satisfying someone else is a lose-win situation. And the need to use beauty in order to feel noticed. Besides for the public to shift over to primarily as citizens, the public needs more self-control instead of giving in to advertisement. Especially, if an ad determines your unhappy marriage is caused by the wrinkles on your face.