The society of the 21st century is visual. A multitude of images are created and transmitted daily. Many of these images are not innocent at all: they transmit a very specific message that society understands, interprets and accepts, normalizing them and disseminating them massively. Without hardly reflecting on its implications and without notable critical questioning.
This is what happens with the images used in advertising for women’s perfumes. The claim is usually the use of images of idealized women (young Caucasian women, who respond to a canon of normative and idealized beauty, beautiful women where blondes with light eyes, small noses, thick lips, with balanced proportions in the face, to which we must add a tall and thin body). The intention is to turn the female subject into an object of desire, just like the bottle itself. The woman and the perfume container mimic each other, sometimes even keeping an enormous physical resemblance in their shapes and contours. By normalizing this advertising resource, there is social acceptance of female objectification. The woman turned into a bottle is, at the same time, object and subject of desire.
This image of women present in perfume advertising is directly related to ancient feminine archetypes. Mainly Lilith and Aphrodite, mythological goddess of Olympus.
The golden and seductive goddess
Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of love and beauty, is the most represented pagan myth, and exemplifies the ideal of love and beauty. It is used, for example, in perfume advertising campaigns. J’adore, by Dior, starring the actress and model Charlize Theron, who appears transformed into an unattainable and seductive goddess with characteristics associated with a normative and idealized beauty through an aesthetic identified with the Caucasian race. She then projects and spreads an unreal image of what women should be like, excluding other ethnic groups.
In addition to the iconographic characteristics that can be observed, such as golden hair or clothing similar to those used in the classical world, the reference to the mythological episode of The birth of Venusin which Aphrodite (Venus) is born from the waters, specifically from the sea.
The rebellious woman
In contrast to the idealized image of Aphrodite, in which white and gold predominate, we find the personification of another archetype, with black and purple colors, that of Lilith. She is the representation of Adam’s first wife, the rebel, the one who leaves paradise to become the mother of all demons.
Dior.
Lilith the sinner, the one associated with lust, is most often found represented in perfume advertisements as a femme fatale. The main characteristics of Lilith – and, by extension, of the femme fatale– are her perverse look and her beauty combined with evil. As iconographic elements, she may appear accompanied by a snake or a feline. We see a clear example of this archetype in the advertisement starring actress Monica Bellucci to promote Dior’s Hypnotic Poison perfume.
Consume advertising without questioning it
In the study “Iconographic representation of women in perfume advertising” we insist that human beings live immersed in a visual society in which the majority of women do not question the image that is offered of them. On the contrary, they tend to try to reproduce these stereotypical images.
If women themselves accept that image and try to reproduce it, we would be faced with visual manipulation that subjects them through unreal and unattainable images. Therefore, a decoding of female images is necessary that allows them to be read from a critical perspective that questions certain female archetypes and stereotypes to contribute to gender equality, banishing the objectification of women.
