Week 3: Semiotic

A Semiotic Analysis of Calvin Klein Perfume Ads

Like it or not, advertising has a large influence of our life; from what we wear, what we eat and to what we think. Advertising is so powerful and persuasive to a point that we as consumer sometimes fail to aware of its main purposes. Thus, through semiotic analysis, we are now able to understand how advertiser, marketer or media expert in general effectively used ‘systems of signs’ to communicate with their audience. Using Calvin Klein perfume ads as the main example, this journal will try to analyze these advertisements in terms of how signs are structured carefully in order to convey the producer’s hidden messages and persuasive meanings of the product.

The above examples are perfume advertisements for Obsession by Calvin Klein, a cologne product for men which I found on Google image. These ads were very controversial and debatable because it featured underage Kate Moss (presumably around 14 or 15 years old) who is presented as a grown-up woman lying nakedly in her sexually suggestive poses making these ads looks like [child] pornography rather than perfume commercials. In a country like the United State for example, ads can be categorized as pornographic images when: (1) focusing on the genital area, (2) showing unnatural poses, (3) depicting children as sex objects, (4) implying that the children are willing to engage in sex, and (5) suggestive settings (http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/educational/handouts/ethics/calvin_klein_case_study.cfm).

There are several things that can be connote from both adverts: (1) representation of femininity- women are passive, fragile, need to be cared, and loved by men, (2) women are property of men (3) representation of physical beauty - an ideal woman is the one with slim and sexy body and (4) representation of heterosexual relationship – focus on male dominance and female submissiveness.

These connotations can be identified through several signifier given in the ads. For example, on the first advert, the female model is lying down uncomfortably on a couch, showing her back naked body while facing her face to the camera. Whereas on the second advert, the model laying on her side while facing directly to the camera, with only her right arm to cover her breast and her right thigh to cover her sensitive part. Both ads used dark materials as the background (noticed that the first ad used dark couch while the second ad used dark shadow) which is in accordance to the model’s dark hair and a good contrast with her smooth, flawless and exposed skin. The way the model’s body presented here actually represent the ideology of what a woman’s body should look like –slender, sexy and seductive. The model’s fragile figure portrayed in these ads also reflects that woman as a weaker sex thus female submission and male domination is inevitable. The model also presented as being delicate, fully naked with her sexually suggestive poses and her expression of ‘willingness’ in both adverts which suggest that: (1) women need to be nurture, (2) women should look desirable and sexually appealing to heterosexual men and (3) it also indicates that man who wears this cologne is a heterosexual male. Even though these ads is about men’s perfume and the fact that there is no man in the photo but instead a young naked girl presented as a grown-woman implies that female, in general, is the sex symbol or object for men. The large-print text “Obsession” (the perfume’s name) which placed above the model and the small text beneath the word Obsession, “for men” in both ads signify that sexy woman (like the model) is the obsession that every normal heterosexual man should have, which also mean to portray that women are property of men.

After analyzing these adverts using semiotic, one can immediately tell that the politics behind these ads are about sexuality, female exploitation as well as sex discrimination. Calvin Klein used these politics to manipulate the audience, both male and female. Male viewers may identify themselves as being self-worth, powerful, the stronger sex and women, on other hand, though retaliate, may identify themselves as the weaker sex. The cultural codes behind these ads present the significant ideology that men are much more valued and powerful than women; this is especially true in patriarchal mediated society.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Website:

Media Awareness Network (2010). Calvin Klein: A Case Study. Retrieved August 20, 2010 from

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/educational/handouts/ethics/calvin_klein_case_study.cfm

Books:

Stokes, J. (2003). Semiotics. How to do media and cultural studies. Ed. Woo, C. H. in Analyzing Visual Communication. Brunei Darussalam: University Brunei Darussalam, 2010.

Tanaka, K. (1994). Advertising Language: A Pragmatic approach to advertisements in Britain and Japan. London: Routledge.

Week 2: Seeing and Perceiving

"We live in the world of perception within our mind – what we see, hear, touch, taste and smell is nothing than the brain perception of electromagnetic signals.” Dr Chris, Seeing and Perceiving Lecture, 2010.

What is perception and why is it different from seeing?

From a simple biological understanding, we learn that seeing is a process that only involves the reaction of the retina to light or stimulus (or more specifically known as electrochemical signals). While perception, on the other hand, is a process that transforms this stimulus (the unprocessed sensory raw data) into something that we can understand. This is only made possible because we use stored information to help us to decode or interpret what we just experienced.

According to Rosenzweigh (2001), perception is different from seeing because “Perception is not just the passive recording of sensory stimuli, but rather an active mental reconstruction of the real world around us” (p.44). Though we may not consciously aware what happens inside our brain, we are actually active meaning-makers, thus Rosenzweigh believes that our perceived reality is actually nothing more than a symbolic representation of the outside world. However, Rosenzweigh argues that this (the way we perceive things) may vary depending on the individual collective knowledge and past experience.

Does culture and society affect perception?

As seeing is a biological construction of the world, perception, on the other hand, is construct by culture and society. When I studied for anthropology module last semester, I was particularly amazed with the problems and difficulties encountered by anthropologists during fieldwork. But, of course, the most challenging part for this researcher is when approaching the people. There were some incidences where researcher almost gets killed by the native people because they fail to recognise the researcher as ‘another existence’ of human being. On various occasions, researcher may face partial-rejection by the society because of his or her appearance and behaviour does not fit with the perceived-image of what is considered as ‘normal’ human being according to their society’s standard (note: partial-rejection also includes other factors such as culture and language differences).

Napoleon Chagnon who is noted for his work on Yanomamo society give a perfect example on how his existence is well-accepted in the society but is still considered as subhuman by the Yanomamo people: “No holds were barred in relieving me of these, since I was considered something subhuman, a non-Yanomamo” (Chagnon, 1997:16). His experienced with Yanomamo society has poked some questions on my head, “Why can’t these Yanomamo people see him as a ‘normal’ human being? What makes him differ from other? According to Chagnon himself, the reason why the Yanomamo considered him as something subhuman because they see him as a white hairy man who is different to the normal Yanomamo man with dark-less hairy form – or in other words, Chagnon is less human in Yanomamo standard.

Chagnon fieldwork of Yanomamo society actually gives some good insights on how society and culture can affect our perception. It also explains why perception is partly biological in nature (as perception also require our sensory capability) and partly determined by nurture (e.g. through socialisation process and the environment we brought to). For example, even though Yanomamo people are fully aware of Chagnon existence in the society, the way Yanomamo perceive a ‘normal’ human being shows that they must have learnt the characteristics that classify ‘human being’ according to their society standard (e.g. dark skin and less hairy) – which unfortunately for Chagnon, he is not qualified in those characteristics.

With this example, it can be argue that culture and society does affect the way we view the world. Therefore to say that one person’s perception is ‘true’ or ‘false’ than the other is impossible because people from different culture see and perceive things differently.

REFERENCES

Chagnon, N. (1997). Yanomamo (5^th ed). USA: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Rosenzweigh, R. (2001). In The World of Senses: Perceiving Is More Than Seeing. Retrieved 20^th August 2010, from http://www.kyb.mpg.de/publications/pdfs/pdf3050.pdf.