Commercial Realism

Erving Goffman, a Canadian-born sociologist and writer, calls advertising "commercial realism." Which means advertising is trying to present the world in ways that could be real. He focuses on advertising in this aspect because of what their seeming normality tells us about ourselves. While watching the video in class, I noticed the huge difference in the way men and women are portrayed in ads. Females are shown very delicate and have a light touch. Men on the other hand, are shown very powerful with perfect stance and direct focus. In other ads women are shown on the ground defenseless and unaware with men hovering over them with perfect attentiveness. These kinds of ads are disturbing because it almost shows men raping women in ads and that is what we are supposed to perceive as 'normal'. If people start accepting this idea of "commercial realism" then our culture could be getting the wrong messages about men and women. These ads are trying to present the world in ways that could be real. Since the communication between the consumer and the ad is very quick it sticks to them because the ads are deep and familiar and when you look at them at first they seem very normal. But if you really study ads you can tell the weirdness in how people are posing, positioned and in what they are doing. This is wrong for media to try and tell us how we perceive femininity and masculinity and what is normal.