Picture this- a photograph of a beautiful brunette haired, Caucasian woman with a slender figure. Imagine she is around twenty-seven years old, with her hair casually pulled up off of her neck. Now picture the photo- a close up shot of her thin torso and naked. One arm bent to cover her right breast and the other seductively dropped to her side. The photograph is in classic black and white- edited to make the variations of tints and shades on the gray scale accentuate the nakedness and seductiveness of her figure. Now imagine instead of a soft round breast an edgy and abrasive horizontal scar occupies the slot on her body that use to represent a very feministic and identifying symbol of a woman. Now imagine under the remaining hidden breast and the scar, the words “Obsessed with breasts” and at the bottom place the reason for this advertisement- “but what are we doing about breast cancer?”

            The image I have just described to you is what I like to call a classic woman’s body wash, soap, shampoo, or lotion advertisement. Random shots of the naked though not naked woman showing off her beautiful skin because the product advertised can make that happen. This advertisement is a powerful one and one that really applied to me for multiple reasons. It could be satirical for the classic advertisements that exploit the female body and abuse the border of feminist rights and the role of gender in our past and present day society. Or the advertisement could be appealing to that ethotic and pathetic aspect of the female figure and the sexual lust that comes with it when using it for advertising a product. Think about how you felt when I described the advertisement. At first when you read you thought to yourself I know what you’re talking about. But then when I told you the breast was missing I caught your attention. And when I added the context and the language to confirm your suspicions of an illness or injury, I captured you just as this advertisement had captured me.

            According to breastcancer.org, Roughly twelve percent of women in the United States will develop breast cancer in their life times. In 2013, almost 300,000 women were diagnosed with invasive and non-invasive breast cancer in America alone. With regards to these facts, this indexical symbol of

propaganda represents feministic stereotypes. Body and sex appeal to sell a product is known to be a successful advertising campaign for many companies and brands. However, this particular advertisement plays off the speculation of “sex sells” to capture the attention of men and women. In many ways this advertisement can be satirical for the sociological aspects this particular genre is expressed in. It’s a shocking feat, and the textual context emanates the “wow” factor that it was meant to put off. It’s a proverbial slap to the face when you first see the woman covering her one breast. It makes the audience, which in this case is almost every demographic including both genders, question why society wont protect something they love? Its almost implying the idea that there is a reserve of a rare good that needs to be taken care of by bodily health, financially, socially, and even economically in order to continue to use it.

            I believe the overall goal of this advertisement was to get people to notice and understand that though only twelve percent of women in America are diagnosed with breast cancer each year that is almost 300,000 women who have to suffer. To go further, think of the families, friends, companies, careers, and even the audiences of the female bodies that will also suffer from the presence of breast cancer. Though this particular advertisement is graphic and gets a very dramatic point across to its targeted audience, worse outcomes can still happen. According to breastcancer.org, nearly 40,000 of the 300,000 women were expected to die from breast cancer.

 

The purpose of any advertisement is to rhetorically persuade a specific population or group to purchase or invest in the product or brand. The breast cancer advertisement’s goal is to gain funds or medical aid to be aware and help in the fight against beast cancer. By pathoticaly appealing to women through emotional understanding and men through emotional realization or awareness, this advertisement successfully captures and appropriates the societal norm of body rhetoric. The breast cancer advertisement is ideologically associated with the social views of American rhetoric. American advertisements use pathetic appeals such as lust, desire, sex, and other emotional tones to persuade the targeted audience. Specifically, this advertisement has a powerful message that arrests the views of many forms of audience. It’s a symbolic image persuading individuals and groups to help in the fight against breast cancer, because breasts mater to us socially, economically, financially, and emotionally.

On a personal level, when I first saw the propaganda, I was pathetically involved in the visual and textual rhetoric. Since my family has a long history of breast cancer, I have always needed to take extra precautions when it came to cancer awareness and how I take care of my body. I’m not easily persuaded by propaganda, however I was persuaded to start fighting for this cause because of the dramatized result that breast cancer may cause.

 

 

Sources

"U.S. Breast Cancer Statistics." Breastcancer.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Sept. 2014.