It may seem unbelievable, but surprisingly, Axe has found the solution to war and violence! The products answer: love. However this love must reinforce heteronormativity, gender stereotypes, white hegemony, racial stereotypes, and requires the use of Axe body spray.
This Axe commercial reinforces the typical gender stereotypes while denoting a hegemonic masculinity and heteronormativity. The idea of dominance is crucial in critiquing the commercial. The sudden change from war to peace is done with a gun pointing at a woman. This was a man is able to show is dominance and ability to over power by pointing the gun (while simultaneously remaining in the massive army tank). The soldier quickly becomes a hero when he pops out of tank. This idea of dominating through war and violence is present in two out of the four scenarios of the commercial. The contrast to the violence, and therefore the idea of the hero, is also seen in each scenario. This reinforces the image of the man as two classic stereotypes: the powerful villain and the strong hero. Furthering the notion of “hero” it is also present that the hero, in both scenes, the hero’s are white men. The other two scenes the men are simply expressing their love. In contrast to the stereotypical male gender binary of power, force, and heroism, the gender stereotype of femininity is also displayed as submissive, nurturing and peaceful[i]. The idea that heterosexual love can solve and prevent war is a harmful messages and helps reinforce gender binary “deceptive distinctions” of what is ‘normal’[ii]. By contributing to what we perceive as normal through an ad that becomes unavoidable via video and picture advertisements, gender socialization takes place, which helps conclude our culture with a sense of gender norms[iii].
Taking a narrow focus now I would like to look at the scenario with the male Soldier and the female Vietnamese farmer. In this scenario we need to question why this scene happened. The idea of the white man as the savior in a foreign land denotes an androcentric perspective and specifically white androcentrism. As discussed earlier the only time a hero was present was if he was white, and in contrast with a female.
The context of this scenario is devoid of historical sympathy. It takes the idea of the Vietnamese rice farmer and the white, presumably western male, saviour and sexualizes the scenario. By doing this we are not learning anything about the product and this scene seems all too familiar to the Vietnam war stories of rape from white soldier to Vietnamese women. The Vietnam war has strings attached to its name that recall the horrific events of mutilation and rape toward women. The fact that consent is completely disregarded in this scene, only further avoids addressing the importance of female agency. Furthermore, gender and race stereotypes seem to interact on the basis of orientalism. The women’s willingness to be dominated produces an image of sexual availability and being naïve[iv].
It is important to ask who the villains are, and what are their connections to race? The ‘Make Love not War’ commercial denotes highly westernize perspective on war. The scenarios in the commercial male it appear as though other states are the cause of war, which in return means that the white, presumably American, soldiers are there only to defend their country, rather than cause war. In this idea the white soldiers become the hero’s and the Iranian and Korean men become the Villains.
The commercial plays classic stereotypes of race, which promote an enlightened racism. In example of an East Asian (presumably North Korea), the communist leader is preparing his troops for war in a highly fascist fashion. In the Middle East (presumably Iran) example, it appears as though the leader of the country is preparing to launch a bomb at another country. Although at the end of the scene each leader is creating some sort of act of love the element of enlightened racism is still present. The idea that someone from East Asia is a communist dictator that has control over the entire population and someone from the Middle East as a potential bomber while simultaneously making the white man a ‘defender’ of his country draws back to orientalist roots[v].
Drawing the focus to women we see that social class based on race is something that the commercial reinforces as well. In the example of the Vietnamese woman working on the rice farm she is portrayed as being dirty (in her attire) and in a state of poverty with multiple children running around. In contrast we see the white woman in office-appropriate attire with an extra emphasis on her classy red high-heels and lipstick. The contrast between the white woman and the Vietnamese woman not only shows a difference in social class, but the difference is based on race and ethnicity. The hierarchy of race and privilege is only continued from this portrayal in the ‘Make love not war’ advertisements.
Secondly, its important to take a look at the facial expressions expressed by the two women in a moment of panic. The white woman remains calm and firm in her position were as the Vietnamese woman has a moment of panic. This is yet another factor that contributes to the social class hierarchy based on racial ethnicity by making the white woman strong and the Vietnamese woman weak.
In Bell Hooks essay “Perspectives on Power” she notes that women and men are taught that dominating others is a basic form of expressing power; “might makes Right”. She makes point to say that women as victims have restrained women from changing the value system[vi]. This is seen throughout the commercial, by creating devaluation of women through victimizing them.
In conclusion this essay does nothing to promote peace. The advertisement is instead counterproductive to enforcing peace by reinforcing heteronormativity, gender stereotypes, white hegemony, and racial stereotypes.
[i] Bromley, Victoria L. (2012). Feminisms Matter: Debates Theories Activism. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
[ii] Kimmel, M and Holler, J. (2011). “Introduction.” pages 1-17 in The Gendered Society. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.
[iii] Custom Edition for Queens University. (2014). Gender, Race and Popular Culture. Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions.
[iv] Ibid. Bromley
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Hooks, Bell. (2000). Changing perspectives on power. In Feminist theory: From margin to center (pages 84-95). Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
I really liked how you noted that “social class hierarchy [is] based on racial ethnicity”. This is a recurring theme found in many ads and in the short film by the L’Oreal company. I really hate using the term ‘race’ because it automatically denotes people into specific categories for which the dominant culture (white) can organize class hierarchies. The term traps people into arbitrary racial types without giving them an identity apart from their perceived ‘ethnicity’. Differences between people should be celebrated and cultures should be shared and appreciated, not used to judge or categorize large groups under a single racial stereotype.
I definitely agree with your opinion on how the clips with the white male and Asian female perpetuated the idea of the exotic beauty, sexually available for the white male, and found lots of insight in your connections between these scenes and the tragedy of the Vietnam war, particularly in how many American soldiers took advantage of the women in this period. It is true that it is images and clips such as these which normalize and make acceptable the idea that foreign women want nothing more than a Western male, and it is these images that contribute to the assault of these women as people internalize these ideas. You have clever insight about how the white female shown in the ad seemed to be of a higher social class than the Asian female, who is seen as the poor farmer. Representations such as these cause people to believe that certain countries are under developed and poor. I also saw the connections between certain races and their roles in combat: the white males being the heroes fighting for peace, while the ethnic males were villains and fighting for their radical beliefs. We see more poor representation here, as it is unfair to assign these roles to these men simply because of their backgrounds.
It is so true that the media paints this picture where racialized women seem to prefer, or long for white men rather than a man from their ‘race’ or from another race. It puts the emphasis on the ‘white’ hero and perpetuates race as being of lower class (hence why racialized women seem to always ‘go for’ the white guy in ads; to possibly move up in social status or class). Not only are the white men heroes of war, but these representations assume that all women are sexually available and always willing to be with a white man.
This is an excellent blog post.
There certainly is a message of male dominance in this advertisement. This is understandable due to Axe body spray’s target audience, but it perpetuates harmful messages nonetheless. While the pointing of the guns towards the women occurred for the purpose of suspense, it put the female characters at the mercy of the male characters, and they never resumed any control over the situation, despite their originally assertive and courageous demeanours.
I liked how you pointed out the sexualized presentation of the presumably Vietnamese woman. I agree that the entire scenario between this woman and the soldier is extremely distasteful, considering how it downplays the extensive violence women represented by this character actually had to experience during the Vietnamese war. I, too, noticed how the placement of multiple young children around this character frames her as domesticated and sexually available (especially to the white saviour character).
Additionally, I liked how you pointed out the typecasting of the non-white characters as radical extremists, and the white characters as heroes. Especially in the presence of American news broadcasting, this portrayal does nothing to challenge current views on conflicts and leaders overseas.