Picture Perfect Double Meaning

I stumbled across this advertisement for a Sony Ericsson C905 Cyber-shot camera the other day, and as soon as I saw it the first thing that came to mind, besides the obvious fact that this woman is seemingly unnecessarily standing in a bra with the product centimeters away from "them" (the easiest draw in of all, BOOBS!), was a key point that I heard in Jean Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly 4.  That key point was the concept of women being dismembered at certain points of the ad.  Clearly, in this ad there is a beautiful woman in lacy underwear holding a camera, but the ad not only focuses mainly on the "camera" area but actually goes as far to cut the woman's eyes out of the advertisement completely.  As they say, the eyes are the window to the soul of a human being, so cutting the eyes out of this advertisement dehumanizes the woman, and she becomes whoever or whatever you want to imagine is standing here.  Jean Kilbourne also mentions that through advertisements, women are told that they are "acceptable only if they are young, thin, white-or at least light-skinned...".  Well I guess it is a good thing that this advertisement clearly proves that statement wrong because this woman is obviously not thin or white....oh no wait a minute.
        As well as noticing aspects of this ad that correlated with key points from Jean Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly 4, I also noticed parts of this ad that correlated with Erving Goffman's The Codes of Gender.  In this presentation, the differences between the body language of men and women are compared and contrasted.  Goffman notes that almost always women will be portrayed cradling or barely holding the product conveying that they are never in control of it.  You can see that in this ad as well because the model is gently grasping the camera between only two fingers, and I don't know about you but in real life, I am not holding an expensive ass camera with only two fingers.  Goffman also notes in The Codes of Gender that women are often portrayed as holding themselves protectively as if "the world around them is too much to handle", and this is clear in the ad for the Sony Ericsson camera because this woman has her arms wrapped around herself as if she is worried.  But, maybe she is just cold because she is in some room wearing nothing but a bra.....but you know who knows.
       And lastly, I would just like to point out the delightful little double entendre that this advertisement leaves with its audience.  The bottom of the ad states, "The Sony Ericsson C905 Cyber-shot--stunning picture quality, whatever the size".  Now considering that phrase and the fact that the camera is centimeters away from this chick's boobs, which just happen to be pretty much the main focus of the entire advertisement,  I find that double meaning hilarious.



Enjoy Killing Us Softly 4 and The Codes of Gender here: