Yesterday, I recieved my monthly issue of Seventeen magazine. I began flipping through the pages and I came across an add for the National Guard. I was very confused and surprised to see this in my fashion magazine. The add displays a young looking girl, obviously a teenager, smiling at the reader, and next to her, another picture is displayed of the same girl in her uniform handing bottles of water to a young boy and his family. In big letters in the middle, it says, "When disaster strikes, we're there to help." The message seems to be different than the one we saw in the commercial in class. It is much softer and "cute". The commercial we watched mostly showed young men (with the football), and the music was hard core, there was guns and shooting, and although it portrayed one woman, it seemed to be aimed at men. This add was obviously meant for women, and it has been changed to fit a woman stereotype: soft, non violent, sympathetic for young children, blah blah blah. First of all, how desperate is it to advertise the National Guard in seventeen magazine? I have never seen anything like this in a fashion magazine before. Second, I feel like this add and the one we watched in class were for two different organizations. The 3 Doors Down video showed fighting and collapsed houses and intense scenes. Yet, the magazine add shows women holding children like mothers, and being soft and loving. There is NOTHING violent or intense about the add. What is wrong with this picture? How dare the guard advertise in a popular magazine, and portray women as weak, motherly figures? You guys may think I'm over analyzing, but what the hell? If the guard is all about "Firing the shot that started a nation", then why do they feel the need to downplay that philosophy in a female aimed magazine? Two words, false advertisement.
4 comments:
I read the magazine too, and the first time through I didn't notice the ad- I guess I'm just so used to skipping over them, but when I flipped through to find the picture, my first reaction to seeing it was, this isn't a National Guard ad. The biggest picture is of a girl white, with brown hair and brown eyes, she's wearing a shirt and a jean vest, but her arms are behind her back as if she was in rank.
I definatly aggree that this is false advertising; they have taken it way out of line. If a boy looked at it, he would have absolutely no interest in joining. (Oh and in one of the smallest pictures is a boy, who, coincidentally, is black)
One more thing- they have this little girl in each of the pictures and she's wearing this bright pink sweater, so against the green uniforms, it really stands out. I guess they were trying another tactic to feminize it, but it's just not cool...
I find this really odd as well. However just that they're recruiting the type of girl who reads "Seventeen" magazine. The part that Carly commented about if a guy saw it he wouldn't want to go into the national guard, I don't think is entirely true. I haven't seen the ad, but you often see ads in which atractive women are trying to sell something for men. And it actually works. Men will see 'oh, an attractive girl is going, so it won't be all about war or really boring' or something like that
Wow. That actually suprised me a lot. I would not expect a women's magazine to contian an ad for the national guard, let alone the army or navy. I think there is a purpose for the way that they did it though. You said that it looked like it was geared towards women who could care for someone like mothers. I think this is really important that they do it this way because if they had men, for instance, in battle, it would only scare women away from joining.
I still, however, think it is interesting how they are now directing it towards women more than they used to, which was pretty much not at all!
great post steph. it's interesting that you picked up on that. the national gurad was definately trying to hit on the fact that women are supposed to "fix things" due to their maternal instinct. they're saying that you can "help out" in the war instead of kick some butt as advertised in the 3 doors down video.
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