role of women in tvcs

7/29/2019 Role of Women in TVCs

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Role of women in TVCs

Views from Indian subcontinent


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Introduction

Media by its nature receives wide exposure. It presumably affects various activities of people

including lifestyle and values. It exerts a powerful influence on the society due to its ability to shape

social trends and mould personal attitudes. It plays a substantial role in the social and economic

development of women. Although the lifestyles and habits of women have changed dramatically in

the last few decades, media reflects a very small part of the true picture. Instead of trying to curb

stereotypes and promote values, trends, attitudes that can help in strengthening the position of women

in our country, media falls short in the enhancement of womens role in our society. Reflecting the

lives of general Indian lives, these adverts are made that could be analyzed to observe and hence

follow on how the society is set, how the media wants the society to be set or how the society uses

media to keep hold of stereotypical ideas. As the ideas sold are pretty much available to Bangladeshi

people, hence Indian adverts are shaping new ideas and sometimes reshaping the old ideas.

In this paper three sets of different Indian advertisement of different products are analyzed that is

depicted below:

Scooty Pept

Nowadays women have stepped out; realizing their potential in fulfilling their dreams and forthem, driving a vehicle is one of the symbols of liberty and fun. This ad completely breaks the

notion that outdoor fun is only a domain of men. 'Hero Honda - Pleasure' is the bike for girls

that came with the tagline "Why should boys have all the fun?"

Ok, it's good to see that the producers are focusing on female freedom saying "Raat pe fun mebreak kiu?" But why on earth that gender war again? Girls can enjoy at night, but adult boys

will face rebuke from their moms for the same thing? Jhoom jhoom jhoom baba!

And in the other TVC, First released about ten years ago, the then famous actress Preity Zinta,in this advert, reaches a Indian college with her pink Scooter. Being bullied by eve teasers just

as she arrives in pink coloured Western clothes, however as soon as the male students teasing

her learns she is a teacher they escape and later faces punishment of writing I Love Pink. Its

good to see in these TVCs that women are getting the equal height in their choices of lifestyle

that is not to be humiliated. However, if you think deeply, you can again see stereotyping

pink as a female colour.

In its recent advert the now famous actress Anushka Sharma, appearing in Western clothing,is seen in the latest Scooty pept at a traffic signal being whistled at, that is eve teased at. She

follows the person with some of the female users of Scooty pept and they bully the person

who teased her.


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Slice

Slice is the fruit drink brand from the Pepsico. In early 2000s, the slice advert focuses thestory on a small quiet, submissive, and shy girl being bullied by a small loud and playful boy

without the girl fighting back. Then as adults, that same boy now older finally proposes the

same girl with the ring inside the bottle of Slice juice. This TVC is a really cute one which

depict the product as a part of the daily life of the consumer.

However, within the last few years Slice has Katrina Kaif as the brand representative in theiradverts and the bottle of Slice now is being referred as Aamsutra relating to the word

Kaamasutra. Aamsutra as the name suggests has a very sensual connotation. "Life -

Aamsutra (resembling Kamasutra), it's pure Mango Pleasure!" One can simply smell too

much sensuous appeal right from the very beginning and this certainly helped to have the

attention of the audience. These Slice TVC series starring Katrina has been characterized by

revealing gestures, attending the juice with much seductive, provocative and vulgar manner

with her lips always the focus in somewhat vulgar manner. At the end of most of these

adverts she is either wooing or being wooed by a man who generally has the juice bottle.

Moreover, there are some really vulgar dialogues like, "Aamsutra kehta hai, Ki lalach ko

jeetna pakne do, Milan utna hi meetha hota hai!" How tickling a sentence! However, the ad

was able to completely use the brand ambassador's charm and looks. The only doubt is

whether the brand is looking at a more mature audience rather than a younger segment. I don't

get the idea behind what does pouting lips and sensuous expressions have to do with selling

of a MANGO DRINK!

Hero Honda

What we've seen in the 'Hero Honda Glamour' TV commercial? Whether the girl is sitting in aposh car or buying flowers from roadside shop or may be photo-shooting for another

glamorous ad, as soon as she sees the bike, her heart says, "Dekhke jhatka laga, man back-

seat pe bhaga!!" Even a transportation engineer (obviously female) just forgets about her

work and gets indulged in the beauty of the bike.

Hero Honda CBZ - Motorcycling unplugged tv commercial is another weird sort of ad thatshows nothing but women who are waiting for a lift in unknown male's bike. Strange indeed!

In this, two heavily built men boastfully and gallantly ride through tough desert roads. In the

middle of the desert they find a slim girl who wears a very alluring, tight, and exposing short

dress, and both the men try to impress her so that she sits behind them on the bike. After she

chooses one biker she rides with him sitting quite close and intimately behind him, and then


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they drop her to her friends house who is another girl, almost the same clothing, and look,

who then joins the other biker and they head out again on the road.

Even the female brand Scooty Pept plus also holds a strong girlish sound like "perky pink". Isblack not for girls or just only for boys? Funny connotation everywhere!

Closely watching and analysing all of the adverts we notice the ulterior and yet conspicuous scenarios

of the adverts. In some cases, we notice that girls are being asked to be more confident, to be self

dependent, be out going and to raise voice against those who teases them. Then in others, we see that

a normal mango juice is used to impress girls at first in a subtle way to propose to the girl and in the

recent ones making girls look and act sexually and vulgarly. Even in some extreme cases, women are

further degraded and used only as the subjects who were waiting to be courted by men who had the

bikes. Hence we see conflicting nature of the adverts regarding female issues, as at one time they are

asked to head out from private sphere to public sphere and on the other hand they are just treated as a

sexual being that needs to look good and have slim figure so that she can be courted and looked after

by a masculine man.

role of women in tvcs

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